XYZ Printing Inc (三緯), the 3D printer manufacturing arm of local electronics conglomerate New Kinpo Group (新金寶集團), yesterday set an ambitious goal of selling 1 million 3D printers globally within the next three years, targeting the consumer segment.
New Kinpo makes printers for Hewlett-Packard Co, Samsung Electronics Co and other big names. The group also makes calculators, smart watches and smart meters among a wide range of electronic devices.
“In the next five years, a large portion of products for daily use will be made by 3D printers,” XYZ Printing chairman Simon Shen (沈軾榮) said at the company’s headquarters in New Taipei City (新北市).
Photo: Tsai Yi-hsuan, Taipei Times
Shen doubles as president of Kinpo Electronics Inc (金寶), one of New Kinpo’s subsidiaries. Kinpo Electronics has a 50 percent stake in XYZ Printing, while the group’s Cal-Comp Electronics (Thailand) PCL (泰金寶) owns the remaining half.
XYZ Printing will launch a pre-order sale of its first 3D printer on its Web site at a cost of NT$15,000 (US$500) per unit before the machine hits Vibo Telecom Inc’s (威寶電信) shelves in December. Vibo, a 3G telecom, is also a unit of New Kinpo.
The retail price is much lower than the US$15,000 minimum cost for a 3D printer from major US brands.
Market researcher Gartner Inc forecast earlier this year that the price of enterprise 3D printers is expected to drop to US$2,000 per unit by 2016.
“We want to offer an affordable model to boost adoption rates,” Shen said.
The company plans to roll out middle and high-end 3D printers next year, offering more colors and diverse materials.
XYZ Printing is targeting the consumer market by offering user-friendly machines to make plastic products.
The global 3D printing industry is expected to make US$11.4 billion in revenue this year, up 28 percent from last year’s US$8.9 billion, local market research house Photonics Industry and Technology Development Association (光電科技工業協進會) said.
“This is an another form of dream factory,” New Kinpo chairman Rock Hsu (許勝雄) said. “Specially designed products will be made in offices, or living rooms [in the future], rather than in [large-scale] factories.”
XYZ Printing, established this year with an initial capital of US$20 million, said it is making 3D printers using its own technologies and patents. It has about 30 new patents under approval.
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: The chipmaker last month raised its capital spending by 28 percent for this year to NT$32 billion from a previous estimate of NT$25 billion Contract chipmaker Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (力積電子) yesterday launched a new 12-inch fab, tapping into advanced chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS) packaging technology to support rising demand for artificial intelligence (AI) devices. Powerchip is to offer interposers, one of three parts in CoWoS packaging technology, with shipments scheduled for the second half of this year, Powerchip chairman Frank Huang (黃崇仁) told reporters on the sidelines of a fab inauguration ceremony in the Tongluo Science Park (銅鑼科學園區) in Miaoli County yesterday. “We are working with customers to supply CoWoS-related business, utilizing part of this new fab’s capacity,” Huang said, adding that Powerchip intended to bridge
Microsoft Corp yesterday said that it would create Thailand’s first data center region to boost cloud and artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure, promising AI training to more than 100,000 people to develop tech. Bangkok is a key economic player in Southeast Asia, but it has lagged behind Indonesia and Singapore when it comes to the tech industry. Thailand has an “incredible opportunity to build a digital-first, AI-powered future,” Microsoft chairman and chief executive officer Satya Nadella said at an event in Bangkok. Data center regions are physical locations that store computing infrastructure, allowing secure and reliable access to cloud platforms. The global embrace of AI
Qualcomm Inc, the world’s biggest seller of smartphone processors, gave an upbeat forecast for sales and profit in the current period, suggesting demand for handsets is increasing after a two-year slump. Revenue in the three months ended in June will be US$8.8 billion to US$9.6 billion, the company said in a statement Wednesday. Excluding certain items, earnings will be US$2.15 to US$2.35 a share. Analysts had projected sales of US$9.08 billion and earnings of US$2.16 a share. The outlook signals that the smartphone market has begun to bounce back, tracking with Qualcomm’s forecast that demand would gradually recover this year. The San