Microsoft Corp is gearing up to grab a share of the highly competitive smartphone operating system (OS) market with its partner in the sector, HTC Corp (宏達電), launching two new phones yesterday that run its latest Windows Phone platform.
The two HTC phones — the Titan and the Radar — are scheduled to hit the shelves at the end of this month. The price of the 4.7-inch Titan is NT$18,900 (US$623), while the 3.8-inch Radar will cost NT$13,900.
Microsoft Taiwan general manager Davis Tsai (蔡恩全) said the company is confident that Mango, the latest upgrade of the company’s Windows Phone OS, has a good chance of challenging Apple Inc’s iOS over the next three years.
Mango’s new features have grabbed market attention. The improvements include threads, which allow users to switch between text, Facebook chat and Windows Live Messenger within the same conversation, and deeper social network integration, which means Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn feeds are now integrated into contact cards and users can see updates from all their contacts in one stream under the “What’s New” tab.
In April, researcher Gartner forecast that Google Inc’s Android OS would have the largest market share during the next four years, rising to 49 percent in 2015 from 23 percent last year.
Apple’s iOS was predicted to grow to 17 percent from 16 percent, while Microsoft’s Windows Phone OS would grab 19.5 percent in 2015 from 4.2 percent last year.
In June, IDC predicted that Microsoft would hold a 20.3 percent market share in 2015.
Taiwanese app developers have started to position themselves to ride the growth of Windows Phone.
“You see shadows of the iOS on Android and these two are more app-driven platforms, while Mango gives you a complete user experience, such as in terms of navigation direction,” said Izero Lee (李明哲), chief operating officer of KKBox Inc, Taiwan’s largest online music service provider.
KKBox has updated its app in Traditional Chinese for subscribers of Windows Phone’s app store, Windows Marketplace.
The music provider, which debuted its music service in Japan in June, is testing a Mango-based app for launch in that market by early next year, Lee said.
KKBox is also promoting its app on Google’s Android Market and Apple’s App Store.
Hu Hsueh-hai (胡學海), marketing managing director at Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信), said it is in talks with Microsoft Taiwan to bundle its own app store, called Hami, into Windows Marketplace, in a move that would offer Hami to a larger audience.
Microsoft Taiwan said offerings in its Marketplace are set to soar to 100,000 apps by the end of next year, from the current archive of almost 35,000 apps.
“Our application store will be the fastest growing of them all,” said Cathy Yeh (葉怡君), Windows client business group director.
There are more than 200 apps developed by Taiwanese firms on Marketplace and e-reading, music services and games apps are popular among Taiwanese users, she said.
SEMICONDUCTORS: The German laser and plasma generator company will expand its local services as its specialized offerings support Taiwan’s semiconductor industries Trumpf SE + Co KG, a global leader in supplying laser technology and plasma generators used in chip production, is expanding its investments in Taiwan in an effort to deeply integrate into the global semiconductor supply chain in the pursuit of growth. The company, headquartered in Ditzingen, Germany, has invested significantly in a newly inaugurated regional technical center for plasma generators in Taoyuan, its latest expansion in Taiwan after being engaged in various industries for more than 25 years. The center, the first of its kind Trumpf built outside Germany, aims to serve customers from Taiwan, Japan, Southeast Asia and South Korea,
POWERING UP: PSUs for AI servers made up about 50% of Delta’s total server PSU revenue during the first three quarters of last year, the company said Power supply and electronic components maker Delta Electronics Inc (台達電) reported record-high revenue of NT$161.61 billion (US$5.11 billion) for last quarter and said it remains positive about this quarter. Last quarter’s figure was up 7.6 percent from the previous quarter and 41.51 percent higher than a year earlier, and largely in line with Yuanta Securities Investment Consulting Co’s (元大投顧) forecast of NT$160 billion. Delta’s annual revenue last year rose 31.76 percent year-on-year to NT$554.89 billion, also a record high for the company. Its strong performance reflected continued demand for high-performance power solutions and advanced liquid-cooling products used in artificial intelligence (AI) data centers,
Gasoline and diesel prices at domestic fuel stations are to fall NT$0.2 per liter this week, down for a second consecutive week, CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) announced yesterday. Effective today, gasoline prices at CPC and Formosa stations are to drop to NT$26.4, NT$27.9 and NT$29.9 per liter for 92, 95 and 98-octane unleaded gasoline respectively, the companies said in separate statements. The price of premium diesel is to fall to NT$24.8 per liter at CPC stations and NT$24.6 at Formosa pumps, they said. The price adjustments came even as international crude oil prices rose last week, as traders
SIZE MATTERS: TSMC started phasing out 8-inch wafer production last year, while Samsung is more aggressively retiring 8-inch capacity, TrendForce said Chipmakers are expected to raise prices of 8-inch wafers by up to 20 percent this year on concern over supply constraints as major contract chipmakers Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and Samsung Electronics Co gradually retire less advanced wafer capacity, TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) said yesterday. It is the first significant across-the-board price hike since a global semiconductor correction in 2023, the Taipei-based market researcher said in a report. Global 8-inch wafer capacity slid 0.3 percent year-on-year last year, although 8-inch wafer prices still hovered at relatively stable levels throughout the year, TrendForce said. The downward trend is expected to continue this year,
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