Although late in the game, Yahoo Inc said yesterday it would launch Yahoo Mobile services in seven countries beginning at the end of this quarter and continuing throughout the year by collaborating with more than 70 telecommunications operators worldwide.
Rather than building an Android, Apple or Microsoft Mobile platform, Yahoo chose to focus on five channels of distribution for monetization and drive customized advertising with its location-based services, Yahoo chief scientist Marc Davis told a media gathering in Taipei.
The five distribution channels are telecom carriers, handset makers, the Yahoo Web site, word of mouth and free application downloads on competitors’ platforms such as iTunes, he said.
“Through all these channels as opposed to focusing on one single platform, Yahoo aims to reach over 4 billion handsets currently in use globally, making Yahoo Mobile truly ubiquitous,” Davis said.
Yahoo Mobile will likely be available in Taiwan some time this year, Elise Chiu (邱瀅憓), audience group vice president at Yahoo-Kimo Inc (雅虎奇摩), said yesterday.
“Taiwan has a mobile penetration rate of 104.6 percent, showing a huge potential for publishers and advertisers to reach out to the huge mobile consumer markets,” Chiu said.
Neither Davis nor Chiu elaborated on which local telecom operators Yahoo was likely to team up with.
Of all the technologies available on Yahoo Mobile, Yahoo-Kimo currently has partnerships with Taiwan Mobile Co (台灣大哥大) and Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信) to provide mobile users with oneSearch functions.
These search functions do not bring up unnecessary Web sites, but rather locations and telephone numbers of the things a user is searching for.
Yahoo-Kimo has commented on several challenges that the local mobile industry is facing, including the need to create more relevant and local mobile content and compelling mobile services that can drive more consumers to use the mobile Internet.
“Yahoo Mobile’s goal is to enable users to create their own Internet starting point on their mobile device so they can better discover, connect to and stay informed about the people and things that are important to them,” Davis said.
These technologies are soon to be released and include Geo Planet, Fire Eagle, oneConnect, Network Time and onePlace.
WEAKER ACTIVITY: The sharpest deterioration was seen in the electronics and optical components sector, with the production index falling 13.2 points to 44.5 Taiwan’s manufacturing sector last month contracted for a second consecutive month, with the purchasing managers’ index (PMI) slipping to 48, reflecting ongoing caution over trade uncertainties, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The decline reflects growing caution among companies amid uncertainty surrounding US tariffs, semiconductor duties and automotive import levies, and it is also likely linked to fading front-loading activity, CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said. “Some clients have started shifting orders to Southeast Asian countries where tariff regimes are already clear,” Lien told a news conference. Firms across the supply chain are also lowering stock levels to mitigate
IN THE AIR: While most companies said they were committed to North American operations, some added that production and costs would depend on the outcome of a US trade probe Leading local contract electronics makers Wistron Corp (緯創), Quanta Computer Inc (廣達), Inventec Corp (英業達) and Compal Electronics Inc (仁寶) are to maintain their North American expansion plans, despite Washington’s 20 percent tariff on Taiwanese goods. Wistron said it has long maintained a presence in the US, while distributing production across Taiwan, North America, Southeast Asia and Europe. The company is in talks with customers to align capacity with their site preferences, a company official told the Taipei Times by telephone on Friday. The company is still in talks with clients over who would bear the tariff costs, with the outcome pending further
Six Taiwanese companies, including contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), made the 2025 Fortune Global 500 list of the world’s largest firms by revenue. In a report published by New York-based Fortune magazine on Tuesday, Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), ranked highest among Taiwanese firms, placing 28th with revenue of US$213.69 billion. Up 60 spots from last year, TSMC rose to No. 126 with US$90.16 billion in revenue, followed by Quanta Computer Inc (廣達) at 348th, Pegatron Corp (和碩) at 461st, CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) at 494th and Wistron Corp (緯創) at
NEGOTIATIONS: Semiconductors play an outsized role in Taiwan’s industrial and economic development and are a major driver of the Taiwan-US trade imbalance With US President Donald Trump threatening to impose tariffs on semiconductors, Taiwan is expected to face a significant challenge, as information and communications technology (ICT) products account for more than 70 percent of its exports to the US, Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said on Friday. Compared with other countries, semiconductors play a disproportionately large role in Taiwan’s industrial and economic development, Lien said. As the sixth-largest contributor to the US trade deficit, Taiwan recorded a US$73.9 billion trade surplus with the US last year — up from US$47.8 billion in 2023 — driven by strong
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