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.
From India to China to the US, automakers cannot make vehicles — not that no one wants any, but because a more than US$450 billion industry for semiconductors got blindsided. How did both sides end up here? Over the past two weeks, automakers across the world have bemoaned the shortage of chips. Germany’s Audi, owned by Volkswagen AG, would delay making some of its high-end vehicles because of what chief executive officer Markus Duesmann called a “massive” shortfall in an interview with the Financial Times. The firm has furloughed more than 10,000 workers and reined in production. That is a further blow
MOBILE SMART: The Dimensity 1200 is 22 percent better in terms of performance than its predecessor, and 25 percent more power-efficient, the handset chip designer said MediaTek Inc (聯發科) yesterday unveiled its premium 5G processors — the Dimensity 1200 and Dimensity 1100 — as it vies for a larger slice of the world’s rapidly growing 5G smartphone market. Manufactured using Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (台積電) 6-nanometer process technology, the Dimensity 1200 processor performs 22 percent better than the previous generation Dimensity 1000+ processor, and is 25 percent more power-efficient, MediaTek said. Chinese smartphone brands Xiaomi Corp (小米) and Realme Mobile Telecommunications (Shenzhen) Co (銳爾覓移動通信) are to be the first adopters of the latest Dimensity chips, the companies said during a virtual media briefing. Xiaomi plans to equip its first
‘BROAD RANGE’: The US Department of Commerce intends to deny a significant number of license requests for exports to Huawei, an industry association said US President Donald Trump’s administration notified Huawei Technologies Co (華為) suppliers, including chipmaker Intel Corp, that it is revoking certain licenses to sell to the Chinese company and intends to reject dozens of other applications to supply the telecommunications firm, people familiar with the matter told reporters. The action — likely the last against Huawei under Trump — is the latest in a long-running effort to weaken the world’s largest telecommunications equipment maker, which Washington sees as a national security threat. The notices came amid a flurry of US efforts against China in the final days of Trump’s administration. US president-elect Joe
Answering to a reported request by Germany to help address a chip shortage in its auto industry, the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) yesterday said that it was in talks with domestic chip suppliers. Foreign media over the weekend reported that German Minister of Economic Affairs Peter Altmaier had sent a request to Taipei to ask Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) to cooperate more closely with German automakers to provide microchips and sensors, to bridge a shortage that has emerged over the past few months. The MOEA said that it had not yet received the request and could therefore not elaborate