Far EasTone iPhones sell out
Far EasTone Telecommunications Co Ltd (遠傳電信), the nation’s No. 3 telecommunications operator, said more than 10,000 people pre-ordered Apple Inc’s new iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus within 30 minutes of its online pre-order service beginning yesterday, greatly surpassing the company’s expectations.
The phone company said the 64-gigabyte gold version of the 5.5-inch iPhone 6 Plus is the most popular order among local consumers.
The second-most popular model is the 64GB gold version of the 4.7-inch iPhone 6, Far EasTone said.
However, the company declined to give specific numbers on each model or the overall pre-orders.
Far EasTone said the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus sold out four hours after pre-orders began. Consumers are advised to go to its stores to place orders for Apple’s new phones.
The operator said it will deliver the phones according to order number after the launch takes place on Sept. 26.
Notebook PC sales rise
Shipments of Taiwanese notebook PC makers rose 4.7 percent sequentially to 36.06 million units last quarter, Taipei-based market researcher Market Intelligence & Consulting Institute (MIC, 資策會) said in a report released yesterday.
That represented an annual growth of 0.4 percent.
“The growth is mainly driven by back-to-school demand, reversing tepid sales of notebook PCs in the past few years,” MIC analyst Jane Yeh (葉貞秀) said in the report.
Intel and Microsoft have been working with PC companies to lower PC prices and boost demand for consumer notebook PCs by cutting license fees.
By shipment value, Taiwanese notebook PC companies reported 0.5 percent sequential growth in sales for last quarter to US$15.99 billion.
On an annual basis, sales grew 3.5 percent.
The notebook PC average selling price slipped to US$443 last quarter, from US$466 the previous quarter, according to the MIC report.
Acer makes Dow Jones Index
Acer Inc (宏碁) has been selected for the first time to be included in one of the prestigious Dow Jones Sustainability Indices (DJSI), the company said yesterday in a statement.
Acer is the only Taiwanese PC maker listed in the DJSI Emerging Markets Index, which consists of the top 10 percent of performers from the 800 companies invited to participate in this year’s assessment.
The result is a confirmation of Acer’s continual efforts to improve sustainability across the entire spectrum of its business, with the company performing exceptionally well in the fields of supply chain management and brand management, the statement said.
Lite-On Technology Corp (光寶), a PC peripheral maker, yesterday said it has been consistently selected as a leading member of the Dow Jones Sustainability Indices for four consecutive years.
Nation’s yuan deposits grow
Yuan deposits at Taiwanese banks grew 0.75 percent to 295.24 billion yuan (US$48.07 billion) at the end of last month, compared with 293.03 billion yuan at the end of July, the central bank said yesterday.
Last month’s level of yuan deposits included 243.36 billion yuan in savings accounts at 67 domestic banking units and 51.88 billion yuan in savings accounts at 59 offshore banking units, according to data provided by the central bank.
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