HTC Corp (宏達電) is developing a smartwatch that uses Google Inc’s Android software and can take pictures, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Cost, full functions and sales strategy for the watch are still to be decided before it is released by the second half of next year, said the person, who asked not to be named because the plans are not public.
The smartwatch will join a growing segment of wearable technology that already includes devices from Samsung Electronics Co and Sony Corp.
Retail sales of Internet-
connected wearable devices, including watches and eyeglasses, will reach US$19 billion by 2018, compared with US$1.4 billion this year, Juniper Research said in a report on Tuesday last week.
Samsung’s smartwatch, the US$299 Galaxy Gear, went on sale on Sept. 25, while Apple Inc has a team of designers working on a watch-like device, two people familiar with the matter said in February.
HTC yesterday said in an e-mail that it does not comment on rumors or speculation.
The company’s shares climbed 6.9 percent to close at NT$139.50 after the Financial Times reported that Peter Chou (周永明), the company’s chief executive officer, has transferred some of his duties to chairwoman Cher Wang (王雪紅) to focus on innovation.
Chou, who took over as president in 2004, has struggled to compete with devices from Apple, Samsung and an array of Chinese entrants driving prices down.
Wang yesterday gathered workers at a town-hall style meeting to tell them the Taiwanese smartphone maker needs to improve its customer focus, HTC chief marketing officer Ben Ho (何永生) said in an interview.
Wang, who was joined by Chou, held a 90-minute meeting with workers, including a question-and-answer session, Ho said.
Wang emphasized the importance of after sales service to ensure customer loyalty and repeat business for the company’s handsets, Ho added.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last