FIH Mobile Ltd (富智康), a handset manufacturing arm of Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), yesterday said it is making mobile phones for new customer InFocus, helping the US projector brand tap the smartphone market.
It is the latest move by FIH Mobile, which was formerly named FIH International Holdings Ltd (富士康控股), to expand its customer base outside of Apple Inc to Chinese smartphone start-ups.
FIH also makes phones for Xiami Corp (小米) and Huawei Technology Co (華為).
DESIGN, MANUFACTURING
Instead of just manufacturing phones, at slim margin, FIH Mobile now “designs, develops and manufactures the phones for InFocus,” Charles Lin (林佳億), a senior director of FIH Mobile, told reporters.
FIH Mobile is also exploring new business opportunities in the Greater China region, targeting new Chinese mobile phone brands, Lin said.
SUBSIDIARY HELP
Since more than 50 percent of its components, such as camera modules, come from Hon Hai Group (鴻海集團) subsidiaries, FIH Mobile is able to make high-quality phones at affordable prices, Lin said.
Hon Hai Precision is the flagship company of Hon Hai Group.
To save on costs and time to market, FIH Mobile is now using handset chips from Qualcomm Inc and MediaTek Inc (聯發科), Lin said.
InFocus, which is shifting its business focus from the projector business to consumer products, debuted its first smartphones in Taipei yesterday before a launch in China next month.
InFocus’ goal is to become one of the top five mobile phone brands in Taiwan within two years and to make it onto China’s top 10 list within three years, InFocus chairman John Hui (許立信) told a media briefing.
The Portland-based company plans to roll out three or four new smartphones by the end of this year.
TACKLING TABLETS
InFocus also plans to enter the tablet market. The company is scheduled to launch its first tablet in October in its home market, Hui said.
The tablet will be made by Hon Hai Precision, which also makes LCD TVs for InFocus.
The newly launched IN610 and IN810 smartphones are priced at NT$11,900 and NT$13,900 per unit.
The phones, powered by Google’s Android system, are equipped with 5-inch and 6.1-inch screens from Sharp Corp, since the trend is to use screens bigger than 5-inches for phones, rather than 4.3-inch displays.
CHIP RACE: Three years of overbroad export controls drove foreign competitors to pursue their own AI chips, and ‘cost US taxpayers billions of dollars,’ Nvidia said China has figured out the US strategy for allowing it to buy Nvidia Corp’s H200s and is rejecting the artificial intelligence (AI) chip in favor of domestically developed semiconductors, White House AI adviser David Sacks said, citing news reports. US President Donald Trump on Monday said that he would allow shipments of Nvidia’s H200 chips to China, part of an administration effort backed by Sacks to challenge Chinese tech champions such as Huawei Technologies Co (華為) by bringing US competition to their home market. On Friday, Sacks signaled that he was uncertain about whether that approach would work. “They’re rejecting our chips,” Sacks
NATIONAL SECURITY: Intel’s testing of ACM tools despite US government control ‘highlights egregious gaps in US technology protection policies,’ a former official said Chipmaker Intel Corp has tested chipmaking tools this year from a toolmaker with deep roots in China and two overseas units that were targeted by US sanctions, according to two sources with direct knowledge of the matter. Intel, which fended off calls for its CEO’s resignation from US President Donald Trump in August over his alleged ties to China, got the tools from ACM Research Inc, a Fremont, California-based producer of chipmaking equipment. Two of ACM’s units, based in Shanghai and South Korea, were among a number of firms barred last year from receiving US technology over claims they have
BARRIERS: Gudeng’s chairman said it was unlikely that the US could replicate Taiwan’s science parks in Arizona, given its strict immigration policies and cultural differences Gudeng Precision Industrial Co (家登), which supplies wafer pods to the world’s major semiconductor firms, yesterday said it is in no rush to set up production in the US due to high costs. The company supplies its customers through a warehouse in Arizona jointly operated by TSS Holdings Ltd (德鑫控股), a joint holding of Gudeng and 17 Taiwanese firms in the semiconductor supply chain, including specialty plastic compounds producer Nytex Composites Co (耐特) and automated material handling system supplier Symtek Automation Asia Co (迅得). While the company has long been exploring the feasibility of setting up production in the US to address
OPTION: Uber said it could provide higher pay for batch trips, if incentives for batching is not removed entirely, as the latter would force it to pass on the costs to consumers Uber Technologies Inc yesterday warned that proposed restrictions on batching orders and minimum wages could prompt a NT$20 delivery fee increase in Taiwan, as lower efficiency would drive up costs. Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi made the remarks yesterday during his visit to Taiwan. He is on a multileg trip to the region, which includes stops in South Korea and Japan. His visit coincided the release last month of the Ministry of Labor’s draft bill on the delivery sector, which aims to safeguard delivery workers’ rights and improve their welfare. The ministry set the minimum pay for local food delivery drivers at
RSS