TECHNOLOGY
GfK notes electronics growth
The consumer electronics market in Taiwan grew about 3 percent last year, driven largely by rising demand for smartphones and other mobile communications devices, a research report showed yesterday. Market information advisory firm GfK said domestic sales of computers, communications and consumer electronics totaled NT$213 billion (US$7.03 billion) last year. However, the growth last year was slower than the 5 percent annual increase in 2012, the advisory firm said. Sales of mobile communications devices grew almost 17 percent last year from a year earlier, accounting for a quarter of total sales, while those of the home appliance sector rose by an annual 8 percent, making up 26 percent of sales, GfK said.
TECHNOLOGY
Chunghwa launches 4 TVs
Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信) launched four smart televisions on Monday intended to make media consumption easier with built-in set-top box features compatible with its multimedia-on-demand services. The firm debuted two Chimei-branded TVs made by Nexgen Mediatech Inc (新視代) and two AOC-branded models from TPV Technology Ltd (冠捷). The country’s largest telecommunications service provider expects to sell 5,000 of the Chimei models over the next three months, while the AOC TVs are expected to go on sale in late April at lower prices, the company said.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts