Global shipments of smartphones showed better-than-expected growth in the first quarter of the year on demand from China and other emerging markets, according to market researcher TrendForce Corp (集邦科技).
Smartphone shipments grew 1.13 percent to 266.9 million during the first quarter from the final quarter of last year, TrendForce said in a research report released on Thursday, as Chinese smartphone makers increased production of 4G-capable models.
Samsung Electronics Co claimed first place with a worldwide market share of 34.9 percent, thanks to growing shipments of its low to mid-ranged models, Trendforce said.
Apple Inc saw a noticeable decline to a 13.6 percent market share, leaving it in second place. Lenovo Group Ltd (聯想) and Motorola Mobility both took 7.5 percent, Huawei Technologies Co (華為) took 5.2 percent, while LG Electronics Co took 4.4 percent over the period, the report said.
Chinese smartphone makers performed better than expected against traditionally stronger global brands, with several companies such as Huawei and Xiaomi Corp (小米) seeing quarterly growth of more than 20 percent, TrendForce researcher Avril Wu (吳雅婷) said.
Another noteworthy company in the quarter was Coolpad (酷派), the first Chinese brand to enter the frequency division duplex-long -term evolution (FDD-LTE) fourth-generation (4G) smartphone market, Wu said.
The company is expected to see rising quarterly shipments throughout this year that give it an upper hand in the global market amid the rapidly expanding 4G industry, she added.
Global smartphone shipments could continue to benefit from increasing demand worldwide, the report said, predicting 6.7 percent quarterly growth to 284.5 million shipments in the second quarter.
Shipments from China are projected to exceed the industry average again in the second quarter at a growth rate of 13.76 percent, it added.
Meanwhile, Asustek Computer Inc’s (華碩) low-cost ZenFone models have become the star products at the Spring Computer Fair in Taipei, drawing more than 1,000 pre-orders on each day of the weekend.
The new ZenFone models were welcomed by local consumers, who plan to buy them as gifts for Mother’s Day, the Taiwanese PC maker said on Sunday. The ZenFone line starts at NT$4,990 (US$166) for a 5-inch model, with shipments scheduled to begin by the end of this month.
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
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],”
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
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day