Hewlett-Packard Co (HP), the world’s largest PC vendor, launched a new lineup of thin, lightweight notebook computers in Taiwan yesterday with the expectation that the category will gain more traction in the country.
In the second half of this year, HP plans to sell five new Ultrabook models in Taiwan that will run on Intel Corp’s new Ivy Bridge processors, while another lightweight laptop powered by AMD’s Trinity processor is scheduled to hit stores in the fourth quarter.
“We expect such products to account for 25 percent of our total notebook shipments in Taiwan by the end of this year,” Tony Chou (周信宏), vice president and general manager of HP Taiwan’s personal systems group, said at a product launch ceremony.
HP Taiwan forecast on Feb. 9 that its shipments would grow by 30 percent in Taiwan this year, saying that annual shipment growth would be much higher than the 7 to 8 percent forecast for the country’s overall PC market.
In the first three months, HP managed to regain some of its lost momentum in the Asia-Pacific PC market (excluding Japan), although its shipments declined 13 percent from a year earlier, according to market researcher IDC.
Lenovo Group Ltd (聯想) continued to outperform its rivals in the region with a 21.8 percent market share, followed by Acer Inc (宏碁) at 12 percent, HP at 9.1 percent, Dell Inc at 9 percent and Asustek Computer Inc (華碩) at 8.2 percent, IDC said.
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