Samsung Electronics Co, the world’s biggest vendor of mobile phones, repeated its first-quarter feat of leading Taiwan’s smartphone market in the second quarter, trailed by HTC Corp (宏達電), the Chinese-language Economic Daily News reported yesterday, citing data collected from sales channels.
Samsung grew 7.4 percent from 28.4 percent in the first quarter to account for 35.8 percent of the 1.35 million units of smartphones sold in the second quarter, while HTC grew 3.7 percent to 28.1 percent from the first quarter, the report said.
Apple Inc’s local market share dropped from 24.3 percent in the first quarter to 10.7 percent in the second quarter, the report showed.
On a monthly basis, Samsung took a 41.5 percent market share last month, followed by HTC’s 23.8 percent and Apple’s 7.1 percent.
South Korean firm Samsung accounted for three of the five best-selling smartphones in the nation in the second quarter and the Galaxy 3 sold 67,000 units after its launch last month, breaking the record for the most units of a single Android smartphone sold in the market in one month, Andy Tu (杜偉昱), general manager of Samsung Electronics Taiwan Co’s mobile communications team, said in the report.
Meanwhile, about 70 percent of Taiwanese polled in a recent survey said they had bought products just because they were made in South Korea, South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency said on Thursday.
In a joint survey by the Taipei offices of the Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency and the Korea Tourism Organization of 339 Taiwanese, 69 percent of respondents said they had bought products simply because the country of origin was listed on the tag as South Korea, the news agency reported.
The most popular goods included clothing and accessories, followed by cosmetics, information and communication goods, food and stationery.
Quizzed about why they prefer South Korean products, 41 percent attributed their preference to superior quality and design, while others said they are more affordable or because of their associations with pop stars from that country.
However, the consumers also listed shortcomings of South Korean products, complaining about poor after-sale services and the lack of Chinese-language instruction manuals.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last