HTC Corp (宏達電) plans to release its first entry-level 4G smartphone in Taiwan next year in an effort to safeguard the company’s position in its home market, a company executive said yesterday.
HTC previously did not target the low-end smartphone market, but it predicts that mid and low-tier smartphones would be the market trend next year.
The company would not be absent from the low-priced market, HTC North Asia president Jack Tong (董俊良) told reporters on the sidelines of an HTC Re action camera product launch event.
Tong said HTC recently launched its first 3G low-end smartphone, the Desire 620G priced at NT$4,990 (US$160), in Taiwan because demand for 3G smartphones still exists, but added that the company also expects the 3G smartphone demand to gradually fade out in the first-quarter of next year.
“We foresee that low-end 3G smartphone demand will be replaced by low-tier 4G smartphones, so we have to be ready to follow the market trend,” Tong said, but he refused to confirm that HTC would launch its first low-priced 4G product early next year.
“We did not have a smartphone priced below NT$5,000 before, but a low-tier smartphone will help to boost HTC’s total sales volume,” Tong said.
However, HTC would not give up its high-end smartphones, such as its HTC One and HTC Butterfly series, Tong said, adding that such tier-one products contribute significantly to gross margin.
Tong said given that the overall performance of HTC’s mid-priced smartphones this year is very good, the company would continue to promote this segment next year.
Tong said Apple Inc’s new iPhone 6 series did not affect HTC’s sales performance this quarter, adding that the company’s sales volume is better than last quarter.
Tong dismissed International Data Corp’s claim that HTC’s No. 1 market share position in Taiwan last quarter has been taken by Asustek Computer Inc’s (華碩) mid-priced Zenfone series.
Tong said according to market information advisory firm GfK, HTC’s smartphones still hold the largest share of the domestic market.
Commenting on the company’s first action camera, the HTC Re, Tong said the product, which weighs only 66.5g, features a sensor that automatically activates the device whenever it is picked up, eliminating the need to touch a power button.
Tong said the HTC Re camera would be available for purchase during the annual IT Month information technology exhibition at a discounted price of NT$4,990.
Separately, the company posted revenues of NT$16.93 billion for last month, up 9.43 percent from last year’s NT$15.47 billion and up 7.79 percent from the previous month’s NT$15.75 billion.
In the first 11 months this year, revenue totaled NT$172.72 billion, down 9.55 percent from a year earlier, according to HTC’s latest filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
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],”