Taiwanese smartphone vendor HTC Corp (宏達電) yesterday launched a new flagship smartphone model, the HTC Butterfly, hoping the upgraded version of its J smartphone could help it regain a greater share of the market dominated by Apple Inc and Samsung Electronics Co.
Known as the HTC J Butterfly in Japan, the HTC Butterfly is an international version and a variant of Droid DNA.
“The Japanese market delivered good news to us that our products [the HTC J and its successor the J Butterfly] are in high demand,” HTC chief executive officer Peter Chou (周永明) told reporters at a product launch event.
Photo: Li Chiu-ming, Taipei Times
“High sales of the products proved that our strategies are correct and satisfy customers’ expectations,” he added.
Chou said he is personally very satisfied by Butterfly’s slim design, and that many people agree that the new model is “the best smartphone so far in the world.”
The model features a touchscreen and an 8 million pixel rear camera. It is powered by a 1.5 Gigahertz dual core CPU and equipped with a 5-inch 1,080-pixel high-definition LCD display. It weighs 140 grams, is water resistant and has a Beats Audio sound system.
Jack Tong (董俊良), president at HTC’s Northern Asia office, said the company is trying to supply extra units of the HTC J to meet strong market demand in Japan.
“Demand for the HTC J series is better than forecast in Japan. Every day our products are ‘sold out immediately’ once they hit the shelves, pushing us to set higher shipment targets to cover the shortage,” he said.
The HTC Butterfly is a “new milestone” for the company, he added.
Asked if HTC’s product cycle is too short compared with that of Apple’s iPhone, Tong said that because HTC is still a young company, it constantly tries to refresh consumers’ perception toward the brand by upgrading its products frequently.
“Our goal is to integrate high-end technologies within one smartphone model, and the HTC One X+ and J Butterfly are the best examples,” Tong said, adding that further integration of the One series and the J series might next year become the company’s ultimate flagship product.
Jeff Pu (蒲得宇), an equity research analyst at Taipei-based Fubon Securities (富邦證券), forecast HTC’s shipments in the first quarter of next year would increase by 18.57 percent to 8.3 million units from 7 million units this quarter, with a target price of NT$310.
Pu said HTC still needs to develop products fitted with long-term evolution (LTE) technology, which is better for the wireless transmission of high-speed data on mobile devices.
In addition, the company must develop more mid and low-end models to increase market share in emerging markets and upgrade high-end models to regain high-end smartphone market share, he said.
HTC said the company will begin shipping the first HTC Butterflys early next week with a price tag of NT$22,900 (US$788) per unit without a contract.
Consumers could also pay a monthly subscription fee of NT$2,443 to own the phone at a minimal monthly cost of NT$990, under a two-year contract with Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信), while both Taiwan Mobile Co (台灣大哥大) and Far EasTone Telecommunications Co (遠傳電信) are expected to begin selling the product by the end of next month, the company said.
HTC’s shares closed down 2.34 percent at NT$271.5 in Taipei trading yesterday, underperforming the broader market, which gained 0.06 percent.
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