“Phablets,” or mobile devices between 5 inches and 6 inches in size that bridge the smartphone and tablet segments, are unlikely to attract a majority of consumers, an analyst at research firm Gartner Inc said.
C.K. Lu (呂俊寬), senior research analyst of mobile devices at Gartner in Taipei, said such devices provide more choice for multidevice owners, but the opportunities they offer in the near term may not be as large as some companies imagine.
“We continue to believe it is a niche market,” Lu told a local media briefing recently, explaining that the phablet category appears attractive only to consumers in certain regions.
For example, Asian consumers prefer carrying only one mobile device because of their limited budget for electronic products, so phablet devices are gaining popularity in this area, he said.
However, in the US and Europe, people often carry 4.5 inch to 5 inch smartphones, as well as 7-inch tablet computers, when going out because they want to be able to separate the functions of a phone and a tablet, Lu said.
The key to making this segment successful is creating applications that take advantage of the large screen, such as those developed by handset makers Samsung Electronics Co of South Korea and Huawei Technologies Co (華為) of China, Lu added.
The remarks came after Taiwanese computer manufacturer Acer Inc (宏碁) said on Monday last week that it plans to unveil its first phone-tablet hybrid handset at the Computex Taipei technology fair in June, which it hopes will gain traction in the fast-growing market.
The new Acer phablet is set to have special camera and software features. Another model with “major component upgrades” is to be launched by the end of this year or early next year, Acer president Jim Wong (翁建仁) said.
Wong projected that the global phablet market will grow to about 10 million units this year, up from between 7 million and 8 million units last year.
NEW IDENTITY: Known for its software, India has expanded into hardware, with its semiconductor industry growing from US$38bn in 2023 to US$45bn to US$50bn India on Saturday inaugurated its first semiconductor assembly and test facility, a milestone in the government’s push to reduce dependence on foreign chipmakers and stake a claim in a sector dominated by China. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi opened US firm Micron Technology Inc’s semiconductor assembly, test and packaging unit in his home state of Gujarat, hailing the “dawn of a new era” for India’s technology ambitions. “When young Indians look back in the future, they will see this decade as the turning point in our tech future,” Modi told the event, which was broadcast on his YouTube channel. The plant would convert
Nanya Technology Corp (南亞科技) yesterday said the DRAM supply crunch could extend through 2028, as the artificial intelligence (AI) boom has led the world’s major memory makers to dramatically reduce production of standard DRAM and allocate a significant portion of their capacity for high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips. The most severe supply constraints would stretch to the first half of next year due to “very limited” increases in new DRAM capacity worldwide, Nanya Technology president Lee Pei-ing (李培瑛) told a news briefing. The company plans to increase monthly 12-inch wafer capacity to 20,000 in the first half of 2028 after a
Property transactions in the nation’s six special municipalities plunged last month, as a lengthy Lunar New Year holiday combined with ongoing credit tightening dampened housing market activity, data compiled by local land administration offices released on Monday showed. The six cities recorded a total of 10,480 property transfers last month, down 42.5 percent from January and marking the second-lowest monthly level on record, the data showed. “The sharp drop largely reflected seasonal factors and tighter credit conditions,” Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房屋) deputy research manager Chen Chin-ping (陳金萍) said. The nine-day Lunar New Year holiday fell in February this year, reducing
Zimbabwe’s ban on raw lithium exports is forcing Chinese miners to rethink their strategy, speeding up plans to process the metal locally instead of shipping it to China’s vast rechargeable battery industry. The country is Africa’s largest lithium producer and has one of the world’s largest reserves, according to the US Geological Survey (USGS). Zimbabwe already banned the export of lithium ore in 2022 and last year announced it would halt exports of lithium concentrates from January next year. However, on Wednesday it imposed the ban with immediate effect, leaving unclear what the lithium mining sector would do in the
RSS