Asustek Computer Inc (華碩) yesterday said it expects to see sales volume growth of more than 30 percent at this year’s IT Month information technology exhibition, driven by its newly launched EeeBook X205.
Priced at NT$6,680 (US$216), the cloud-based laptop that runs Windows is expected to emerge as a new segment in the notebook computer business, Asustek sales general manager Kevin Lin (林福能) told a press conference ahead of the exhibition, which is set to run from Saturday to Dec. 7.
The 11.6-inch Windows 8.1 notebook is equipped with 2 gigabytes (GB) of RAM and 32GB of storage that comes with 500GB of cloud storage from Asustek and another 1 terabyte from Microsoft Corp.
Photo: Chen Ping-hung, Taipei Times
Weighing less than 1kg, the EeeBook X205 can be viewed as an extension of the popularity of smart handheld devices, as consumers get accustomed to storing their data in the cloud, Lin said.
“Most people are more familiar with Windows operating system, which gives EeeBook an advantage in the market,” Lin added.
Despite Asustek’ optimism, Yuanta Securities Investment Consulting Co (元大投顧) is conservative about the device’s potential revenue contribution, saying that earnings from hardware would be reduced because it is a low-cost product.
“Consumer behavior and a stable connectivity environment” are potential barriers that the EeeBook X205 must overcome, a Yuanta analyst who declined to be named told the Taipei Times by telephone.
Not every consumer is open to the idea of putting important data in the cloud, he said.
Asustek is also set to launch its 13.3-inch Chromebook C300 MA at the exhibition.
The company has sold 1,000 Chromebox desktop computers in Taiwan since they were launched on Oct. 31 and plans to sell another 1,000 units at the trade show, Lin said.
Yuanta said the Chromebook looks promising because of demand from the education sector.
However, both the Chromebook and EeeBook X205 are likely to encounter difficulties in emerging markets due to an unstable connectivity environment, he said.
“In the short term, Asustek might see losses from its EeeBook segment, but over the medium and long term, we think it is a positive strategy to add a cloud-based notebook to the market,” the Yuanta analyst said.
He said that based on Asustek’s guidance for this quarter, notebook shipments are expected to grow 7.84 percent, outpacing the industry, which is forecast to be flat or decline by as much as 5 percent.
Lin said that Asus has sold more than 1 million Zenfone smartphones domestically since the product hit the market in April and more than 1 million units per month worldwide, adding that the company expects the forceful sales momentum to continue.
For tablets, Lin said sales of the Asus 7-inch PadFone accounts for 60 percent of its tablet segment, while the 8-inch and 10-inch models account for 40 percent.
He said he expects sales of the 7-inch model to decline slightly, while the 8-inch picks up next year, as users increasingly favor larger-screen smartphones.
SEMICONDUCTOR SERVICES: A company executive said that Taiwanese firms must think about how to participate in global supply chains and lift their competitiveness Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said it expects to launch its first multifunctional service center in Pingtung County in the middle of 2027, in a bid to foster a resilient high-tech facility construction ecosystem. TSMC broached the idea of creating a center two or three years ago when it started building new manufacturing capacity in the US and Japan, the company said. The center, dubbed an “ecosystem park,” would assist local manufacturing facility construction partners to upgrade their capabilities and secure more deals from other global chipmakers such as Intel Corp, Micron Technology Inc and Infineon Technologies AG, TSMC said. It
NO BREAKTHROUGH? More substantial ‘deliverables,’ such as tariff reductions, would likely be saved for a meeting between Trump and Xi later this year, a trade expert said China launched two probes targeting the US semiconductor sector on Saturday ahead of talks between the two nations in Spain this week on trade, national security and the ownership of social media platform TikTok. China’s Ministry of Commerce announced an anti-dumping investigation into certain analog integrated circuits (ICs) imported from the US. The investigation is to target some commodity interface ICs and gate driver ICs, which are commonly made by US companies such as Texas Instruments Inc and ON Semiconductor Corp. The ministry also announced an anti-discrimination probe into US measures against China’s chip sector. US measures such as export curbs and tariffs
The US on Friday penalized two Chinese firms that acquired US chipmaking equipment for China’s top chipmaker, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯國際), including them among 32 entities that were added to the US Department of Commerce’s restricted trade list, a US government posting showed. Twenty-three of the 32 are in China. GMC Semiconductor Technology (Wuxi) Co (吉姆西半導體科技) and Jicun Semiconductor Technology (Shanghai) Co (吉存半導體科技) were placed on the list, formally known as the Entity List, for acquiring equipment for SMIC Northern Integrated Circuit Manufacturing (Beijing) Corp (中芯北方積體電路) and Semiconductor Manufacturing International (Beijing) Corp (中芯北京), the US Federal Register posting said. The
India’s ban of online money-based games could drive addicts to unregulated apps and offshore platforms that pose new financial and social risks, fantasy-sports gaming experts say. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government banned real-money online games late last month, citing financial losses and addiction, leading to a shutdown of many apps offering paid fantasy cricket, rummy and poker games. “Many will move to offshore platforms, because of the addictive nature — they will find alternate means to get that dopamine hit,” said Viren Hemrajani, a Mumbai-based fantasy cricket analyst. “It [also] leads to fraud and scams, because everything is now
RSS