With PC and tablet PC markets becoming saturated in Europe and the US, local computer companies Acer Inc (宏碁) and Asustek Computer Inc (華碩) are eyeing emerging markets in South Asia, South America and the Middle East for more growth, the Chinese-language Commercial Times has reported.
According to the International Data Corp (IDC), the penetration rate of smartphones in India is only 23 percent and the tablet market in the United Arab Emirates still has a nearly 25 percent annual growth rate.
Peter Chang (張旗浚), regional head of South Asia and managing director for Asustek India, estimates that his company’s cellphone sales in India in the third quarter should surpass 200,000 units and that its market share is set to reach between 1 percent and 2 percent.
He predicted that Asustek could enter the top 10 cellphone brands in India by the end of this year if everything goes smoothly, and has the potential to enter the top five next year.
According to the IDC, the top five brands in India are Samsung, Micromax, Karbonn, Lava and Motorola.
Asustek also plans to launch the first-generation ZenFone in another market — Brazil — next month.
Meanwhile, David Drummond, vice president of Acer’s Middle East and Africa operation, said the company’s PC market share in the United Arab Emirates reached 15.7 percent in the first half of the year, compared with 9.5 percent last year.
He estimated that with the unveiling of new models, the market share could climb to 18 percent for the whole year.
Allen Burnes, vice president of Acer’s smartphone business, said the company would unveil 4G cellphones in the United Arab Emirates in the first quarter of next year, hoping to improve the market share from 3 percent to 5 percent.
Acer’s new Liquid smartphone series and wearable device — the Liquid Leap — is set to be launched in the Middle East and Africa in early November.
It is understood that although the Liquid Leap sells for 99 euros (US$127) in Europe, it will adopt different prices for the Middle East, dependent upon the individual nations’ situations.
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],”
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
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained