Taiwan’s digital camera manufacturers are trying to enter new markets to make up for falling sales caused by the growing popularity of smartphones and tablets equipped with camera functions, market analysts said on Saturday.
Hoping to capitalize on their existing optics technology, digital camera suppliers are extending their reach to new product lines, such as gaming consoles, laser televisions, medical devices, face recognition technology and camera lenses for industrial automation, the analysts said.
Some digital camera makers are also upgrading their technology and getting involved in areas like ultra-pixel lens development, or developing value-added devices such as products that have Internet communications functions, they said.
Global shipments of digital cameras are expected to fall 20 percent from a year earlier to 70 million units this year, as smartphone sales rise.
That would be a 5 percent steeper decline than the 15 percent recorded last year, when digital camera shipments fell below 100 million units.
By contrast, smartphone shipments for this year are expected to rise 32.7 percent from a year earlier to 958.8 million units, according to researcher International Data Corp.
The diminishing digital camera market has particularly hurt companies such as Ability Enterprise Co (佳能), Altek Corp (華晶科), Asia Optical Co (亞光) and Premier Technology Co (普立爾), which specialize in manufacturing digital cameras for consumer use, forcing them to find alternative sources of revenue, analysts said.
Ability has responded by entering a niche market: high-end and ultra-thin camera modules used in digital cameras, smartphones, tablet computers, security control systems and cars.
It has also begun to produce sporty cameras that are waterproof, shockproof and dustproof to strengthen its competitive edge. In addition, it has also enabled some of its camera products to have Internet communications capabilities to broaden consumer appeal.
Altek said it has extended its reach beyond digital camera production since 2006 to manufacture optical devices to be used in cars, medical equipment, face recognition devices and surveillance monitors.
The company said it expected its non-digital camera business to account for 30 percent of sales this year, up from 15 percent last year, to make up for the shrinking digital camera market.
Asia Optical said it has launched a 50X zoom camera model that has received orders from US and European distributors such as Wal-mart Stores Inc and Argos Ltd.
Like Altek, it has also supplemented its digital camera production with other product lines, including gaming consoles, laser TVs and family theater products.
HORMUZ ISSUE: The US president said he expected crude prices to drop at the end of the war, which he called a ‘minor excursion’ that could continue ‘for a little while’ The United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Kuwait started reducing oil production, as the near-closure of the crucial Strait of Hormuz ripples through energy markets and affects global supply. Abu Dhabi National Oil Co (ADNOC) is “managing offshore production levels to address storage requirements,” the company said in a statement, without giving details. Kuwait Petroleum Corp said it was lowering production at its oil fields and refineries after “Iranian threats against safe passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz.” The war in the Middle East has all but closed Hormuz, the narrow waterway linking the Persian Gulf to the open seas,
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
Taiwan has enough crude oil reserves for more than 100 days and sufficient natural gas reserves for more than 11 days, both above the regulatory safety requirement, Minister of Economic Affairs Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫) said yesterday, adding that the government would prioritize domestic price stability as conflicts in the Middle East continue. Overall, energy supply for this month is secure, and the government is continuing efforts to ensure sufficient supply for next month, Kung told reporters after meeting with representatives from business groups at the ministry in Taipei. The ministry has been holding daily cross-ministry meetings at the Executive Yuan to ensure
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
RSS