Nokia Oyj, the world's biggest mobile phone maker, yesterday launched the first handset in Taiwan with the capability to receive mobile broadcasts, to spur demand as the nation awaits the introduction of mobile broadcasting licenses next year.
Nokia has teamed up with local TV stations such as Chinese Television Co (中視) and telecom operators including Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信) to apply for a mobile TV license.
"We hope this new function will stimulate demand for handheld devices as digital cameras did before," said Pan Tsai-chun (潘才俊), an executive of Nokia's Taiwan branch.
PHOTO: FAN CHAI-YU, TAIPEI TIMES
Pan made the remark on the sidelines of the launch of the new N77 mobile phone with the "digital video broadcasting-handheld" (DVB-H) functionality.
The phone is the first such model made by the Finnish brand for commercial sale.
The N77 has a better display, including higher resolution, than third-generation handsets, Pan said.
PILOT PROJECT
Until broadcasting licenses are distributed, local users will be able to watch less than ten TV channels, including a news channel and a shopping channel, through a pilot broadcasting project.
Market researcher Informa Telecoms and Media projected sales of mobile phones with DVB-H functionality would soar to 50 million units by the end of 2010 with 125 million subscribers to mobile broadcast TV services.
As the Asia-Pacific region is a leader in pushing for mobile broadcast services, Taiwan was the third market chosen by Nokia for the launch, Pan said.
Nokia started selling the N77 phone in Vietnam and Malaysia earlier this year.
Separately, Credit Suisse Group yesterday raised its forecast for mobile phone shipments to 1.15 billion units this year and to 1.3 billion units next year on faster-than-expected demand in Western Europe, Japan and North America.
HANDSET SHIPMENTS
Credit Suisse had previously estimated handset shipments would rise 15 percent to 1.14 billion this year and expand 10 percent to 1.25 billion units next year.
Credit Suisse named chip packager Advanced Semiconductor Engineering Inc (日月光半導體), chip designer MediaTek Inc (聯發科) and Foxconn International Holdings Ltd (富士康控股), the world's largest contract manufacturer of handsets, among stocks likely to benefit the most from higher-than-expected phone shipments.
Additional reporting by Bloomberg
Nvidia Corp’s demand for advanced packaging from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) remains strong though the kind of technology it needs is changing, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said yesterday, after he was asked whether the company was cutting orders. Nvidia’s most advanced artificial intelligence (AI) chip, Blackwell, consists of multiple chips glued together using a complex chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS) advanced packaging technology offered by TSMC, Nvidia’s main contract chipmaker. “As we move into Blackwell, we will use largely CoWoS-L. Of course, we’re still manufacturing Hopper, and Hopper will use CowoS-S. We will also transition the CoWoS-S capacity to CoWos-L,” Huang said
Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) is expected to miss the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump on Monday, bucking a trend among high-profile US technology leaders. Huang is visiting East Asia this week, as he typically does around the time of the Lunar New Year, a person familiar with the situation said. He has never previously attended a US presidential inauguration, said the person, who asked not to be identified, because the plans have not been announced. That makes Nvidia an exception among the most valuable technology companies, most of which are sending cofounders or CEOs to the event. That includes
INDUSTRY LEADER: TSMC aims to continue outperforming the industry’s growth and makes 2025 another strong growth year, chairman and CEO C.C. Wei says Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), a major chip supplier to Nvidia Corp and Apple Inc, yesterday said it aims to grow revenue by about 25 percent this year, driven by robust demand for artificial intelligence (AI) chips. That means TSMC would continue to outpace the foundry industry’s 10 percent annual growth this year based on the chipmaker’s estimate. The chipmaker expects revenue from AI-related chips to double this year, extending a three-fold increase last year. The growth would quicken over the next five years at a compound annual growth rate of 45 percent, fueled by strong demand for the high-performance computing
TARIFF TRADE-OFF: Machinery exports to China dropped after Beijing ended its tariff reductions in June, while potential new tariffs fueled ‘front-loaded’ orders to the US The nation’s machinery exports to the US amounted to US$7.19 billion last year, surpassing the US$6.86 billion to China to become the largest export destination for the local machinery industry, the Taiwan Association of Machinery Industry (TAMI, 台灣機械公會) said in a report on Jan. 10. It came as some manufacturers brought forward or “front-loaded” US-bound shipments as required by customers ahead of potential tariffs imposed by the new US administration, the association said. During his campaign, US president-elect Donald Trump threatened tariffs of as high as 60 percent on Chinese goods and 10 percent to 20 percent on imports from other countries.
RSS