Samsung Electronics Taiwan Co (三星) yesterday said it would secure a 25 percent share of the nation’s cellphone market before the end of the year — up from the current 16 percent — by promoting its Anycall series.
“Samsung seems to have hit a sweet spot with the Anycall series, and we can reasonably expect to reach 20 percent market share in the third quarter and 25 percent by fourth quarter,” said Simon Liu (劉嘉原), manager of the company’s mobile communication product marketing at the product launch of Anycall F408 yesterday.
This meant that Samsung plans to sell up to 1.5 million units of Anycall mobile phones in Taiwan by the end of the year, Liu said.
Following the i458, F338 and F258 models, the company’s Musicall series has reached the low and mid-tier music phone category. The latest F408 is specifically targeted at high-end music phone users. It retails at NT$11,500 (US$369) and will be available by the middle of the month.
Anycall F408 combines Bang & Olufsen audio technology and Samsung’s expertise in digital music and communications devices. The 3.5G (HSDPA) music phone delivers stereo sound both on the headset and on speakers courtesy of its ICE power amplifier and DNSe 2.0 (digital natural surround sound engine).
The F408 cellphone comes with a 3.0 mega pixel camera with auto-focus function.
The product targets music lovers as well as “users ages 24 to 34 who are keen on design, audio and visual capabilities,” Liu said.
Most multitasking functions such as e-mail, instant messaging, Internet access, calendar and contact list are included in the phone.
To many, Tatu City on the outskirts of Nairobi looks like a success. The first city entirely built by a private company to be operational in east Africa, with about 25,000 people living and working there, it accounts for about two-thirds of all foreign investment in Kenya. Its low-tax status has attracted more than 100 businesses including Heineken, coffee brand Dormans, and the biggest call-center and cold-chain transport firms in the region. However, to some local politicians, Tatu City has looked more like a target for extortion. A parade of governors have demanded land worth millions of dollars in exchange
Hong Kong authorities ramped up sales of the local dollar as the greenback’s slide threatened the foreign-exchange peg. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) sold a record HK$60.5 billion (US$7.8 billion) of the city’s currency, according to an alert sent on its Bloomberg page yesterday in Asia, after it tested the upper end of its trading band. That added to the HK$56.1 billion of sales versus the greenback since Friday. The rapid intervention signals efforts from the city’s authorities to limit the local currency’s moves within its HK$7.75 to HK$7.85 per US dollar trading band. Heavy sales of the local dollar by
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) revenue jumped 48 percent last month, underscoring how electronics firms scrambled to acquire essential components before global tariffs took effect. The main chipmaker for Apple Inc and Nvidia Corp reported monthly sales of NT$349.6 billion (US$11.6 billion). That compares with the average analysts’ estimate for a 38 percent rise in second-quarter revenue. US President Donald Trump’s trade war is prompting economists to retool GDP forecasts worldwide, casting doubt over the outlook for everything from iPhone demand to computing and datacenter construction. However, TSMC — a barometer for global tech spending given its central role in the
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday met with some of the nation’s largest insurance companies as a skyrocketing New Taiwan dollar piles pressure on their hundreds of billions of dollars in US bond investments. The commission has asked some life insurance firms, among the biggest Asian holders of US debt, to discuss how the rapidly strengthening NT dollar has impacted their operations, people familiar with the matter said. The meeting took place as the NT dollar jumped as much as 5 percent yesterday, its biggest intraday gain in more than three decades. The local currency surged as exporters rushed to
RSS