Samsung Electronics Co yesterday announced price cuts for its MP3 player series in a move aimed at competitively priced new iPod nanos.
The price of Samsung's YP-Z5 1GB model, which looks and feels similar to Apple Computer Inc's iPod nanos but boasts a longer battery life and larger screen, has been lowered to NT$4,400 (US$132) from NT$4,990.
The cost of the 2GB model has been reduced to NT$5,400 from NT$5,990, and the 4GB now sells at NT$7,000 down from NT$7,490.
These reduced price tags put the YP-Z5 on par with the new iPod nanos, which went on sale in local stores last week.
"We have to match the pricings of the iPod nanos to compete with them," David Li (李正祜), a supervisor at Samsung's Taiwan branch, told reporters at a product launch yesterday.
He said that Samsung's pricing strategy would have to reflect market conditions and that it would not take the lead in cutting prices further to boost sales.
Vendors are aggressively unveiling new digital music players, including the latest iPod shuffles, which will be available early next month.
The launches are expected to trigger a price war in December as vendors attempt to cash in on the Christmas shopping spree, Li said.
Samsung yesterday introduced two new MP3 players, including the K5 -- claimed to be the industry's first player to feature a set of compact speakers that slide out from the back of the device.
The T9, meanwhile, boasts a 1.8-inch liquid-crystal-display screen with 176 x 220 pixels, and is ideal for clear and sharp viewing of MPEG-4 video files.
For the first eight months of the year, Apple's iPods were the top selling music players in Taiwan in terms of sale value, followed by Samsung and Sony Corp respectively, according to statistics from GfK Marketing Services.
The total market size for the year will be 1 million units, up from last year's 870,000, vendors estimated.
Taiwanese suppliers to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC, 台積電) are expected to follow the contract chipmaker’s step to invest in the US, but their relocation may be seven to eight years away, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said yesterday. When asked by opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Niu Hsu-ting (牛煦庭) in the legislature about growing concerns that TSMC’s huge investments in the US will prompt its suppliers to follow suit, Kuo said based on the chipmaker’s current limited production volume, it is unlikely to lead its supply chain to go there for now. “Unless TSMC completes its planned six
Intel Corp has named Tasha Chuang (莊蓓瑜) to lead Intel Taiwan in a bid to reinforce relations between the company and its Taiwanese partners. The appointment of Chuang as general manager for Intel Taiwan takes effect on Thursday, the firm said in a statement yesterday. Chuang is to lead her team in Taiwan to pursue product development and sales growth in an effort to reinforce the company’s ties with its partners and clients, Intel said. Chuang was previously in charge of managing Intel’s ties with leading Taiwanese PC brand Asustek Computer Inc (華碩), which included helping Asustek strengthen its global businesses, the company
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
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