Global shipments of smartphones will increase by more than 20 percent next year amid growing popularity of mid-range models, according to a Taipei-based market information advisory firm.
Shipments of smartphones are expected to reach 876 million units next year, rising by an annual 24.3 percent, TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) said in a recent statement.
However, the growth rate, is slowing down, TrendForce said, noting that it was more than 50 percent in past years.
The top five global leaders in the smartphone industry next year will be Samsung Electronics Co of South Korea, US giant Apple Inc, Lenovo Group Ltd (聯想) of China, Taiwan’s HTC Corp (宏達電) and Finland-based Nokia Oyj, the advisory firm forecast.
Samsung and Apple alone are expected to account for 45 percent of global shipments, while Chinese brands, such as Huawei (華為), Coolpad (酷派) and ZTE (中興), will make up more than 30 percent, it added.
As for operating systems, the flexibility of Google’s Android platform allows for creativity in terms of software and hardware integration, resulting in greater product differentiation, according to TrendForce.
Given its “immense market advantage,” TrendForce predicted that Android would retain the biggest share of next year’s global smartphone market with 70 percent, followed by Apple’s iOS with 18 percent and Microsoft Corp’s Windows with 8.7 percent.
Digitimes Research, another local firm, held a similar view, saying that the majority of smartphone makers still use Android, while many more want to launch various low to medium-priced Android models.
Smartphones running the Android system are forecast to account for more than 70 percent of the global smartphone market, Digitimes predicted.
It predicted that iOS would retain second place with 19.1 percent of the market.
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],”
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
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained