Smartphone vendor HTC Corp (宏達電) yesterday launched four new mid-end smartphone models to boost sales as demand for high-end smartphones stagnated.
“The smartphone market has come to a relatively mature stage where the product cycle is getting shorter than ever,” HTC Greater China region president Jack Tong (董俊良) told reporters on the sidelines of a product launch event.
To cope with this trend, “HTC needs to launch more products to cater to consumer needs,” Tong said.
Commenting on HTC’s competitor Xiaomi Corp (小米), which is set to sell its new Red Rice smartphone at a price of NT$3,999 next month, Tong said: “Every brand adopts a different business model and pricing strategy.”
Regarding HTC’s new products, Fubon Securities Co (富邦證券) analyst Ange Wu (吳淵傑) yesterday said by telephone that “HTC made a wise decision in selecting four processor suppliers.”
The four newly launched models are equipped with chips from Qualcomm Inc, Broadcom Corp, ST-Ericsson and Spreadtrum Communications Inc (展訊通信), showing that HTC was able to develop products on various platforms, but also proves the company’s awareness of risk control,” Wu said.
Commenting at Xiaomi’s offices, Wu said Xiaomi’s Red Rice smartphone is much more affordable to consumers, but it is still possible for HTC to increase its shares in the mid-tier smartphone market if the company continues collaborating with Chinese telecom operators.
Currently, HTC only partners with China’s largest telecom China Mobile Ltd (中國移動) to sell its One smartphone series.
The Taoyuan-based company is still in discussions with China Unicom Ltd (中國聯通) and China Telecom Corp Ltd (中國電信), China’s second and third-largest telecoms, to sell its mid-end products, Wu said.
HTC’s new smartphones carry price tags ranging from NT$7,900 to NT$13,900 and will hit the market next month.
Consumers can also get the smartphones at lower prices ranging from NT$990 to NT$4,990, bundling service packages from Taiwan’s three largest telecom Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信), Taiwan Mobile Co (台灣大哥大) and Far EasTone Telecommunications Co (遠傳電信).
With this year’s Semicon Taiwan trade show set to kick off on Wednesday, market attention has turned to the mass production of advanced packaging technologies and capacity expansion in Taiwan and the US. With traditional scaling reaching physical limits, heterogeneous integration and packaging technologies have emerged as key solutions. Surging demand for artificial intelligence (AI), high-performance computing (HPC) and high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips has put technologies such as chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS), integrated fan-out (InFO), system on integrated chips (SoIC), 3D IC and fan-out panel-level packaging (FOPLP) at the center of semiconductor innovation, making them a major focus at this year’s trade show, according
DEBUT: The trade show is to feature 17 national pavilions, a new high for the event, including from Canada, Costa Rica, Lithuania, Sweden and Vietnam for the first time The Semicon Taiwan trade show, which opens on Wednesday, is expected to see a new high in the number of exhibitors and visitors from around the world, said its organizer, SEMI, which has described the annual event as the “Olympics of the semiconductor industry.” SEMI, which represents companies in the electronics manufacturing and design supply chain, and touts the annual exhibition as the most influential semiconductor trade show in the world, said more than 1,200 enterprises from 56 countries are to showcase their innovations across more than 4,100 booths, and that the event could attract 100,000 visitors. This year’s event features 17
EXPORT GROWTH: The AI boom has shortened chip cycles to just one year, putting pressure on chipmakers to accelerate development and expand packaging capacity Developing a localized supply chain for advanced packaging equipment is critical for keeping pace with customers’ increasingly shrinking time-to-market cycles for new artificial intelligence (AI) chips, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) said yesterday. Spurred on by the AI revolution, customers are accelerating product upgrades to nearly every year, compared with the two to three-year development cadence in the past, TSMC vice president of advanced packaging technology and service Jun He (何軍) said at a 3D IC Global Summit organized by SEMI in Taipei. These shortened cycles put heavy pressure on chipmakers, as the entire process — from chip design to mass
Germany is to establish its first-ever national pavilion at Semicon Taiwan, which starts tomorrow in Taipei, as the country looks to raise its profile and deepen semiconductor ties with Taiwan as global chip demand accelerates. Martin Mayer, a semiconductor investment expert at Germany Trade & Invest (GTAI), Germany’s international economic promotion agency, said before leaving for Taiwan that the nation is a crucial partner in developing Germany’s semiconductor ecosystem. Germany’s debut at the international semiconductor exhibition in Taipei aims to “show presence” and signal its commitment to semiconductors, while building trust with Taiwanese companies, government and industry associations, he said. “The best outcome
RSS