Ultrabook laptop specifications will become the mainstream model for tablet PCs and notebooks in the next five years, Acer Inc (宏碁) chairman J.T. Wang (王振堂) said on Saturday.
Ultrabooks will help stimulate Taiwan’s information technology (IT) sector, Wang said at a press conference after the opening ceremony of this year’s IT Month Exhibition at Hall 1 and Hall 3 of the Taipei World Trade Center on Saturday.
Because the majority of Taiwan’s IT industry uses Wintel frameworks, the release of the ultrabook will propel the Wintel system forward, which has stalled over the past two years, Wang added. Personal computers running on Wintel systems use Intel processors with Microsoft Windows operating systems.
Photo: AFP
The line between laptops and tablets will become less distinct with ultrabooks entering the market this year, Wang added.
Most computer brands released ultrabooks in late October and last month.
The combined laptop and tablet market is growing at an annual rate of more than 20 percent and Wang predicted that the ultrabook would take up shares of both markets.
However, to increase ultrabook sales volumes, prices need to be kept at about US$699, Wang said. Prices of ultrabooks right now range between US$799 and US$1,299.
Forecasts of ultrabook sales in the fourth quarter of this year are positive and the company will keep shipment volumes at between 250,000 and 300,000 units, Wang added.
Intel has prepared a US$300 million deal with Acer and other IT companies to help improve ultrabook sales and costs, Wang said.
Wang also said that the global IT industry was shifting from developed countries to emerging markets because of slow growth in the former.
Besides markets in Brazil, Russia, India and China, Wang recommended Vietnam and Indonesia, citing World Bank economic outlook reports indicating that emerging markets with large populations had the most manufacturing and consumption growth potential.
The challenge for Taiwanese IT brands and manufacturers is how to build up business in emerging markets, Wang said.
For companies to operate long-term in these countries, they will need to familiarize themselves with local market demands, sales channels and business environments, Wang added.
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