Personal digital assistant (PDA) vendors are flexing their muscles and developing new applications and distribution channels to boost sales of the handheld devices in Taiwan, PDA companies said yesterday.
"The global PDA market appears to have slowed down as new gadgets with integrated functions like smart phones are increasingly eating into the PDA segment. The key is lack of killer applications," said Marty Kung (
MIC predicted that global shipments of PDAs will slide to around 11.4 million units this year from 12.2 million last year. The growth in this industry will be very minimal, as the industry is moving into a mature phase, Kung said.
In a report released in October, the international research house IDC said the worldwide market for handheld devices grew in the third quarter of this year.
Device shipments rose by 1.1 percent year-on-year in the third quarter and increased by 9.4 percent from the previous quarter to 2.37 million units, IDC said.
But IDC predicted the growth will be unsustainable.
"Unless holiday season demand proves particularly positive, the handheld device market will decline more steeply in 2003 than in 2002 as it returns to 2000's level," IDC said.
To combat the downward pressure, Mitac International Corp (
"In an attempt to get rid of the shadow, last month we rolled out our first PDA, Mio168, with embedded global positioning system [GPS] service," said Mitac spokeswoman Justine Liu (
To boost sales and brand names, Mitac began early this month to distribute its latest PDA at Family-Mart Co's (
"So far, sales of the new model have far exceeded our expectations," Liu said. Mitac originally set a target of selling 2,000 Mio168s but has sold nearly 5,000 units as of yesterday. The company sold about 300 such devices at Family Mart, she added.
Handheld computer maker PalmOne Inc yesterday also launched its new PDA model T3 equipped with a GPS option. The company said it expects the local handheld computing market to remain flat this year and could have a chance to see slight growth next year amid an economic recovery.
But PalmOne is still gauging the feasibility of selling its PDA products at convenience stores, said Jim Tsai (
"Higher cost and inventories will be our top concerns when thinking about selling our products at convenience chain stores," he said.
Consumer's purchasing habits are also a concern, Tsai added.
"Without detailed introductions of IT products like at computer and electronics retail stores, consumers lack of a strong motivation to buy a high-price product like a PDA, not to mention paying in cash."
Mitac's Mio168 and PalmOne's T3 are retailed at about NT$12,000 and NT$14,300 respectively.
Hewlett-Packard Co, the world's largest PDA vendor, said Taiwan's retail channel is not the major venue for the company to sell its handhelds.
"It is not a long-term and stable way to sell information technology products at convenience stores, which usually sell those products along with others in a special promotion," said Frank Hsu (徐寶旺), a marketing development manager at Hewlett-Packard Taiwan Ltd.
Power supply and electronic components maker Delta Electronics Inc (台達電) yesterday said second-quarter revenue is expected to surpass the first quarter, which rose 30 percent year-on-year to NT$118.92 billion (US$3.71 billion). Revenue this quarter is likely to grow, as US clients have front-loaded orders ahead of US President Donald Trump’s planned tariffs on Taiwanese goods, Delta chairman Ping Cheng (鄭平) said at an earnings conference in Taipei, referring to the 90-day pause in tariff implementation Trump announced on April 9. While situations in the third and fourth quarters remain unclear, “We will not halt our long-term deployments and do not plan to
‘SHORT TERM’: The local currency would likely remain strong in the near term, driven by anticipated US trade pressure, capital inflows and expectations of a US Fed rate cut The US dollar is expected to fall below NT$30 in the near term, as traders anticipate increased pressure from Washington for Taiwan to allow the New Taiwan dollar to appreciate, Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行) chief economist Lin Chi-chao (林啟超) said. Following a sharp drop in the greenback against the NT dollar on Friday, Lin told the Central News Agency that the local currency is likely to remain strong in the short term, driven in part by market psychology surrounding anticipated US policy pressure. On Friday, the US dollar fell NT$0.953, or 3.07 percent, closing at NT$31.064 — its lowest level since Jan.
The US dollar was trading at NT$29.7 at 10am today on the Taipei Foreign Exchange, as the New Taiwan dollar gained NT$1.364 from the previous close last week. The NT dollar continued to rise today, after surging 3.07 percent on Friday. After opening at NT$30.91, the NT dollar gained more than NT$1 in just 15 minutes, briefly passing the NT$30 mark. Before the US Department of the Treasury's semi-annual currency report came out, expectations that the NT dollar would keep rising were already building. The NT dollar on Friday closed at NT$31.064, up by NT$0.953 — a 3.07 percent single-day gain. Today,
The New Taiwan dollar and Taiwanese stocks surged on signs that trade tensions between the world’s top two economies might start easing and as US tech earnings boosted the outlook of the nation’s semiconductor exports. The NT dollar strengthened as much as 3.8 percent versus the US dollar to 30.815, the biggest intraday gain since January 2011, closing at NT$31.064. The benchmark TAIEX jumped 2.73 percent to outperform the region’s equity gauges. Outlook for global trade improved after China said it is assessing possible trade talks with the US, providing a boost for the nation’s currency and shares. As the NT dollar
RSS