The 4.7-inch iPhone 7 was the best-selling smartphone in Taiwan following its global launch last month, industry insiders said.
The new iPhone attracted consumers not only because of its novelty, but also because many consumers in the market for a high-end mobile phone turned away from Samsung Electronics Co’s Galaxy Note 7, which the company eventually stopped selling following a series of battery explosions and fires.
The iPhone 7 and the 5.5-inch iPhone 7 Plus have been on sale in Taiwan since Sept. 16.
It was the first time Apple Inc included Taiwan in the first group of nations in which a new iPhone series went on sale.
The sources said the 128 gigabyte (GB) iPhone 7 was the best-selling smartphone by number of units last month, followed by the iPhone 7 Plus, this year’s version of Samsung’s Galaxy J7, Taiwan-based PC vendor Asustek Computer Inc’s (華碩) ZenFone 3 ZE552KL and the 32GB iPhone 7.
Asustek is one of several Taiwanese PC brands hoping to gain a foothold in the smartphone market to limit the negative impact of a slowdown in the global PC market.
Its ZenFone series targets the mid-range market.
Asustek’s ZenFone3 ZE520KL came in sixth ahead of Taiwanese smartphone maker HTC Corp’s (宏達電) HTC Desire 728 dual-sim, Japan-based Sony Corp’s Xperia XA, telecom service provider Taiwan Mobile Co’s (台灣大) Amazing X3s and the ZenFone 2 Laser ZE550KL.
The Galaxy Note 7 was the best-selling handset in Taiwan in August, when it was launched worldwide.
Due to the warm reception of the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus, Apple had the highest share of smartphone revenue in Taiwan last month at 61.6 percent, followed by Samsung, Asustek, HTC and Sony, the sources said.
In terms of sales volume, Apple also gained the No. 1 spot by taking a 29 percent share of the Taiwan market last month, ahead of Samsung, Asustek, HTC and Sony, the sources added.
This month, 684,000 smartphones have been sold in Taiwan, representing an increase of about 20,000 units from last month, the sources said.
It was the third consecutive month unit sales in Taiwan posted month-on-month growth, the sources added.
DECOUPLING? In a sign of deeper US-China technology decoupling, Apple has held initial talks about using Baidu’s generative AI technology in its iPhones, the Wall Street Journal said China has introduced guidelines to phase out US microprocessors from Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) from government PCs and servers, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The procurement guidance also seeks to sideline Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software in favor of domestic options, the report said. Chinese officials have begun following the guidelines, which were unveiled in December last year, the report said. They order government agencies above the township level to include criteria requiring “safe and reliable” processors and operating systems when making purchases, the newspaper said. The US has been aiming to boost domestic semiconductor
Nvidia Corp earned its US$2.2 trillion market cap by producing artificial intelligence (AI) chips that have become the lifeblood powering the new era of generative AI developers from start-ups to Microsoft Corp, OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet Inc. Almost as important to its hardware is the company’s nearly 20 years’ worth of computer code, which helps make competition with the company nearly impossible. More than 4 million global developers rely on Nvidia’s CUDA software platform to build AI and other apps. Now a coalition of tech companies that includes Qualcomm Inc, Google and Intel Corp plans to loosen Nvidia’s chokehold by going
ENERGY IMPACT: The electricity rate hike is expected to add about NT$4 billion to TSMC’s electricity bill a year and cut its annual earnings per share by about NT$0.154 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has left its long-term gross margin target unchanged despite the government deciding on Friday to raise electricity rates. One of the heaviest power consuming manufacturers in Taiwan, TSMC said it always respects the government’s energy policy and would continue to operate its fabs by making efforts in energy conservation. The chipmaker said it has left a long-term goal of more than 53 percent in gross margin unchanged. The Ministry of Economic Affairs concluded a power rate evaluation meeting on Friday, announcing electricity tariffs would go up by 11 percent on average to about NT$3.4518 per kilowatt-hour (kWh)
OPENING ADDRESS: The CEO is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence at the trade show’s opening on June 3, TAITRA said Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) chairperson and chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) is to deliver the opening keynote speech at Computex Taipei this year, the event’s organizer said in a statement yesterday. Su is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing (HPC) in the artificial intelligence (AI) era to open Computex, one of the world’s largest computer and technology trade events, at 9:30am on June 3, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said. Su is to explore how AMD and the company’s strategic technology partners are pushing the limits of AI and HPC, from data centers to