Nexgen Mediatech Inc (新視代科技), a wholly owned subsidiary of Chi Mei Corp (奇美實業), yesterday released a 120-inch U-series LED TV with 4K resolution, as the company aims to grab market share in the high-end TV market.
The new product surpassed its 98-inch model, which it released in 2017, and became the largest locally made TV, the company said in a statement.
The Android-based U-series features a wider range of colors compared with the company’s other models, the company said, adding that it has already received orders from a well-known customer.
The company also showcased its new 65-inch and 75-inch TVs with 4K resolution at a product launch in Taipei in a bid to increase its market share and land new business opportunities ahead of next year’s Tokyo Olympic Games.
“Although the home appliance market remained slow this year, we expect demand for larger TVs to gradually increase with the introduction of newer and larger TV models,” Nexgen Mediatech vice president Max Yu (余泯樂) said.
The company’s shipments of LED TVs increased 7 percent year-on-year in the first nine months to 110,000 to 120,000 units, Yu said, adding that shipments this year are expected to remain flat from last year at between 150,000 and 160,000 units.
With customers switching to larger TVs, sales of 50-inch TVs and larger are expected to climb from 50 percent of sales this year to 60 percent next year, Yu said.
Shipments of air-conditioners this year are expected to be flat from last year at about 20,000 units, he said, adding that the company is aiming to sell 30,000 units next year.
To improve its product portfolio and boost sales, the company has started shipping electric fans, air purifiers and mini irons, and it plans expand its lines in these products next year, he said.
The company this quarter also introduced two new washing machines and a clothes dryer, he added.
Sales this year are expected to post single-digit percentage growth, while next year they are expected to increase about 10 percent year-on-year on the back of new product releases, analysts said.
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