To succeed in the digital camera brand-name business, Taiwanese companies should listen to what Asian customers need, a research firm said yesterday.
"They should learn the business models applied to cultures of different countries," Christopher Chute, International Data Corp's (IDC) senior research analyst, told a media gathering.
Chute said Taiwan's companies should start by forming a firmer foothold in the region, and take advantage of proximity and lower costs to lure Asian customers.
According to IDC, the local digital camera market is expected to expand by at least 10 percent this year. Last year, the sector grew 16 percent from the year earlier.
The global market is expected to report only single-digit growth for the next four years, he said.
Shipments of camera phones, meanwhile, are expected to expand by 84 percent in 2009, up from this year's 60 percent, generating a debate on whether more users will turn to camera phones and forgo digital cameras.
Chute said digital cameras will not be replaced by camera phones, as each offers different advantages.
In addition to the threat camera phones pose to the digital camera industry, more challenges are ahead, as there will be consolidation among digital camera vendors in the next two years, Chute said.
He expects this will cut the current 13 to 14 big international players down to under 10.
Elon Musk’s lieutenants have reached out to chip industry suppliers, including Applied Materials Inc, Tokyo Electron Ltd and Lam Research Corp, for his envisioned Terafab, early steps in an audacious and likely arduous attempt to break into the production of cutting-edge chips. Staff working for the joint venture between Tesla Inc and Space Exploration Technologies Corp (SpaceX) have sought price quotes and delivery times for an array of chipmaking gear, people familiar with the matter said. In past weeks, they’ve contacted makers of photomasks, substrates, etchers, depositors, cleaning devices, testers and other tools, according to the people, who asked not to
Taichung reported the steepest fall in completed home prices among the six special municipalities in the first quarter of this year, data compiled by Taiwan Realty Co (台灣房屋) showed yesterday. From January through last month, the average transaction price for completed homes in Taichung fell 8 percent from a year earlier to NT$299,000 (US$9,483) per ping (3.3m²), said Taiwan Realty, which compiled the data based on the government’s price registration platform. The decline could be attributed to many home buyers choosing relatively affordable used homes to live in themselves, instead of newly built homes in the city’s prime property market, Taiwan Realty
JET JUICE: The war on Iran’s secondary effects have seen fuel prices skyrocket, knocking flight schedules down to earth in return as airlines struggle with costs Airline passengers should brace for more irritation in the next few months as carriers worldwide cancel flights and ground planes to cope with stratospheric increases in jet-fuel prices. Dutch flag carrier KLM is the latest company to cut its schedule, saying on Thursday that it would scrap 80 return flights at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport in the coming month. That puts it in the same league as United Airlines Holdings Inc, Deutsche Lufthansa AG and Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd, which have all pruned itineraries to mitigate costs. Global capacity for next month has been reduced by about 3 percentage points, with all
The government yesterday approved applications by Alphabet Inc’s Google to invest NT$27.08 billion (US$859.98 million) in Taiwan, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said in a statement. The Department of Investment Review approved two investments proposed by Google, with much of the funds to be used for data processing and electronic information supply services, as well as inventory procurement businesses in the semiconductor field, the ministry said. It marks the second consecutive year that Google has applied to increase its investment in Taiwan. Google plans to infuse NT$25.34 billion into Charter Investments Ltd (特許投資顧問) through its Singapore-based subsidiary Fructan Holdings Singapore Pte Ltd, and
RSS