NEC Corp, Japan's largest maker of personal computers and the country's third-largest maker of mobile phones, is set to increase procurement from Taiwanese suppliers this year, a top company executive said yesterday.
"Judging by the operations of our company here, I believe our procurement from Taiwanese partners will show no signs of declining this year," NEC senior executive vice president Toshiro Kawamura told reporters in Taipei yesterday.
NEC last year spent around US$3 billion to purchase electronics components and products from Taiwanese suppliers, accounting for 12 percent of its global procurement of US$25 billion, he said.
The company's purchases from Taiwan stood at US$2.66 billion in 2004.
"Taiwan and Japan share close relations, and we would like to increase our trading amount here," Kawamura said.
He declined to discuss figures for this year.
NEC is the second-largest Japanese vendor that buys from Taiwanese suppliers. Sony Corp is the largest.
NEC, which mainly sources laptops, handsets, servers, memory chips and other electronic components from Taiwan, is working closely with Quanta Computer Inc (廣達電腦), First International Computer Inc (大眾電腦) and Arima Computer (華宇).
Kawamura dismissed speculation that NEC had plans to set up a second research and development (R&D) center in Taiwan to focus on software solutions.
"Taiwan's core strength lies in hardware, and we will continue to strengthen software development at the existing center," he said.
The R&D center was set up in August 2004, with an investment of NT$2 billion (US$63.59 million) over three years. It mainly develops hardware products, including computers and servers.
Kawamura was in Taipei to attend the "NEC Taiwan Solution Fair 2006," a seminar and exhibition on the company's latest hardware and software solutions.
He met representatives of Compal Electronics Inc (
On Thursday, Tokyo-based NEC said that its net income for the year ended March 31 had dropped 84 percent to ?12.1 billion (US$3.4 billion) on losses at the company's chip and cellphone businesses.
The company hopes to increase the profitability of its business solutions division, aiming to boost the division's revenue contribution from the current level of 40 percent to 60 percent in the future, Kawamura said.
Hardware products now account for 60 percent of the company's total sales, although about 80 percent of profitability was derived from its business-solutions offerings, he said.
Anna Bhobho, a 31-year-old housewife from rural Zimbabwe, was once a silent observer in her home, excluded from financial and family decisionmaking in the deeply patriarchal society. Today, she is a driver of change in her village, thanks to an electric tricycle she owns. In many parts of rural sub-Saharan Africa, women have long been excluded from mainstream economic activities such as operating public transportation. However, three-wheelers powered by green energy are reversing that trend, offering financial opportunities and a newfound sense of importance. “My husband now looks up to me to take care of a large chunk of expenses,
SECTOR LEADER: TSMC can increase capacity by as much as 20 percent or more in the advanced node part of the foundry market by 2030, an analyst said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is expected to lead its peers in the advanced 2-nanometer process technology, despite competition from Samsung Electronics Co and Intel Corp, TrendForce Corp analyst Joanne Chiao (喬安) said. TSMC’s sophisticated products and its large production scale are expected to allow the company to continue dominating the global 2-nanometer process market this year, Chiao said. The world’s largest contract chipmaker is scheduled to begin mass production of chips made on the 2-nanometer process in its Hsinchu fab in the second half of this year. It would also hold a ceremony on Monday next week to
TECH CLUSTER: The US company’s new office is in the Shalun Smart Green Energy Science City, a new AI industry base and cybersecurity hub in southern Taiwan US chip designer Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) yesterday launched an office in Tainan’s Gueiren District (歸仁), marking a significant milestone in the development of southern Taiwan’s artificial intelligence (AI) industry, the Tainan City Government said in a statement. AMD Taiwan general manager Vincent Chern (陳民皓) presided over the opening ceremony for the company’s new office at the Shalun Smart Green Energy Science City (沙崙智慧綠能科學城), a new AI industry base and cybersecurity hub in southern Taiwan. Facilities in the new office include an information processing center, and a research and development (R&D) center, the Tainan Economic Development Bureau said. The Ministry
ADVERSARIES: The new list includes 11 entities in China and one in Taiwan, which is a local branch of Chinese cloud computing firm Inspur Group The US added dozens of entities to a trade blacklist on Tuesday, the US Department of Commerce said, in part to disrupt Beijing’s artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced computing capabilities. The action affects 80 entities from countries including China, the United Arab Emirates and Iran, with the commerce department citing their “activities contrary to US national security and foreign policy.” Those added to the “entity list” are restricted from obtaining US items and technologies without government authorization. “We will not allow adversaries to exploit American technology to bolster their own militaries and threaten American lives,” US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said. The entities
RSS