Asustek Computer Inc (華碩) yesterday said it expects to ship more smartphones this month after selling about 105,000 ZenFones in May and more than 200,000 units last month.
With the ZenFone 5 ranked as the bestselling smartphone locally for two consecutive months, the company hopes the wider ZenFone range “will remain the bestseller in July,” following the launch of its first 4G long-term evolution (LTE) handset, Asustek’s corporate vice president Benson Lin (林宗樑) said.
The world’s fifth-largest PC vendor yesterday introduced the ZenFone 5 LTE, as the company pursues larger market share amid consumers’ migration to 4G networks.
The ZenFone 5 LTE has a Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 1.2GHz quad-core processor and costs NT$6,990 (US$233) for a 16GB model, undercutting models with similar specifications from competitors, such as Sony Corp’s Xperia M2 at NT$9,900, and HTC Corp’s (宏達電) Desire 610 at NT$7,990.
The company also revealed the PadFone S LTE version. The 5-inch smartphone starts from NT$9,999 and supports wireless charging.
Lin said the company’s previously reported supply issue has been resolved and Taiwanese consumers can receive their new smartphones within a day if they order online.
The company had a local smartphone market share of between 14 and 16 percent in May and became the largest smartphone brand in the local market last month, Lin said.
Chief executive officer Jerry Shen (沈振來) said Asustek has targeted China’s Xiaomi Corp (小米) as its main competitor in the budget smartphone segment and is confident about its own competitiveness, as Asus smartphones are well received in Southeast Asian countries like Singapore and Malaysia.
Asustek in May told investors that it expected to sell 5 million to 10 million smartphones this year.
Separately, Sony Mobile Communications AB said yesterday it plans to take a step-by-step approach rather than launch a global campaign to boost its global market share at the expense of bigger rivals Samsung Electronics Co and Apple Inc.
Kaz Tajima, senior vice president and head of UX Creative Design and Planning at Sony Mobile, said the Japanese handset maker needs to challenge “two giants” in the global smartphone market, referring to Samsung and Apple.
“At Sony, we have a kind of market-by-market approach. If we try to fight those two giants everywhere, it’s impossible,” Tajima told a press briefing in Taipei.
“But as a challenger, we pinpoint the market, identify the market and take a two-digit share ... stealing share from those two giants,” he said.
Sony Mobile has successfully applied that strategy to become one of the top three players in Japan, and the company has also been ranked among the top three smartphone vendors in Taiwan, Tajima said.
There are now almost 10 markets globally where Sony has achieved a market share of more than 10 percent, including Spain, Russia, Sweden, Hong Kong and India, he said.
“So we would like to increase that kind of market one by one — not having a full fight, one-by-one approach — to achieve this performance,” Tajima said.
WASHINGTON’S INCENTIVES: The CHIPS Act set aside US$39 billion in direct grants to persuade the world’s top semiconductor companies to make chips on US soil The US plans to award more than US$6 billion to Samsung Electronics Co, helping the chipmaker expand beyond a project in Texas it has already announced, people familiar with the matter said. The money from the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act would be one of several major awards that the US Department of Commerce is expected to announce in the coming weeks, including a grant of more than US$5 billion to Samsung’s rival, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), people familiar with the plans said. The people spoke on condition of anonymity in advance of the official announcements. The federal funding for
HIGH DEMAND: The firm has strong capabilities of providing key components including liquid cooling technology needed for AI servers, chairman Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday revised its revenue outlook for this year to “significant” growth from a “neutral” view forecast five months ago, due to strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers from cloud service providers. Hon Hai, a major assembler of iPhones that is also known as Foxconn, expects AI server revenues to soar more than 40 percent annually this year, chairman Young Liu (劉揚偉) told investors. The robust growth would uplift revenue contribution from AI servers to 40 percent of the company’s overall server revenue this year, from 30 percent last year, Liu said. In the three-year period
LONG HAUL: Largan Energy Materials’ TNO-based lithium-ion batteries are expected to charge in five minutes and last about 20 years, far surpassing conventional technology Largan Precision Co (大立光) has formed a joint venture with the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI, 工研院) to produce fast-charging, long-life lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles, mobile electronics and electric storage units, the camera lens supplier for Apple Inc’s iPhones said yesterday. Largan Energy Materials Co (萬溢能源材料), established in January, is developing high-energy, fast-charging, long-life lithium-ion batteries using titanium niobium oxide (TNO) anodes, it said. TNO-based batteries can be fully charged in five minutes and have a lifespan of 20 years, a major advantage over the two to four hours of charging time needed for conventional graphite-anode-based batteries, Largan said in a
Taiwan is one of the first countries to benefit from the artificial intelligence (AI) boom, but because that is largely down to a single company it also represents a risk, former Google Taiwan managing director Chien Lee-feng (簡立峰) said at an AI forum in Taipei yesterday. Speaking at the forum on how generative AI can generate possibilities for all walks of life, Chien said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) — currently among the world’s 10 most-valuable companies due to continued optimism about AI — ensures Taiwan is one of the economies to benefit most from AI. “This is because AI is