Handset chip designer VIA Telecom Inc (威睿電通) is aiming for a bigger share of China’s third-generation (3G) handset chip market this year after adding more mobile phone makers, including industry leader Nokia, to its customer list, a company executive said yesterday.
VIA Telecom is a handset chip design arm of local computer chip designer VIA Technologies Inc (威盛電子), headquartered in Sindian, Taipei County.
Breaking Qualcomm’s dominance of China’s 3G — or TDSCDMA — handset chip market, VIA Telecom had a 3.7 percent share of the market last year and expects to expand its share to 25 percent this year as China’s 3G services take off, company chief executive Zhang Ker (張可) told a media briefing in Taipei yesterday.
“We are optimistic about the [China’s 3G] market. We have more than 10 customers now and will add more in the fourth quarter,” said Timothy Chen (陳主望), special assistant to VIA Technologies president Chen Wen-chi (陳文琦), on the sidelines of the press conference.
The mobile phone chip designer recently added Nokia, Samsung Electronics Inc and LG Electronics Inc to its customer base, Zhang said.
VIA Telecom has shipped 30 million 3G chips this year, helping the company to turn a profit for the first time in the first quarter since the company’s inception seven years ago, he said.
Last month, VIA Telecom signed a memorandum of understanding with 3G telecom operator China Telecom Corp (中國電信) to supply it with handset chips and netbook computers equipped with VIA Technologies’ processors and chipsets. China Telecom is the biggest fixed-line carrier in China.
VIA Technologies had a 30 percent share of China’s netbook market last year and hopes to expand its hold by increasing collaboration with more Chinese telecom operators, said Kevin Huang (黃義家), a senior director of VIA Technologies’ Asia sales division.
VIA Technologies primarily supplies its netbook solution to white-box notebook PC makers in China, but it has won new orders from China’s major PC brands, including China’s biggest PC maker Lenovo Group Ltd (聯想) lately.
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Motorists ride past a mural along a street in Varanasi, India, yesterday.
Until US President Donald Trump’s return a year ago, when the EU talked about cutting economic dependency on foreign powers — it was understood to mean China, but now Brussels has US tech in its sights. As Trump ramps up his threats — from strong-arming Europe on trade to pushing to seize Greenland — concern has grown that the unpredictable leader could, should he so wish, plunge the bloc into digital darkness. Since Trump’s Greenland climbdown, top officials have stepped up warnings that the EU is dangerously exposed to geopolitical shocks and must work toward strategic independence — in defense, energy and
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