VIA Telecom Inc (威睿電通), a handset chip designing arm of PC chip designer VIA Technologies Inc (威盛電子), yesterday said shipments could grow 50 percent next year, riding on the faster uptake of third-generation (3G) services in China.
VIA Telecom is expected to grow with its Chinese partner, China Telecommunications Corp (China Telecom, 中國電信), which is looking to buy between 50 million and 80 million cellphones for subscribers next year, VIA Telecom chief executive Chang Ker (張可) told reporters in Taipei.
In May, VIA Telecom inked a memorandum of understanding with China Telecom to supply China’s 3G operator with handset chips and netbook computers equipped with VIA Technologies processors and chipsets.
“We expect to see a new wave of migration from 2G to 3G next year after more applications hit the market ... China’s remote areas will be the main growth spots,” Chang said.
To expand its customer base, China Telecom may offer more low-cost mobile phones priced at around 200 yuan (US$30) per unit, Chang said.
Fueled by the growth momentum, VIA Telecom expects to increase its shipment by 50 percent next year, Chang said.
He declined to give specific shipment numbers.
The Beijing-based handset chip designer shipped 30 million chips in the first half of the year. Sales in China accounted for about 70 percent of its revenues, he said.
VIA Telecom also supplies handset chips to Samsung Electronics Co, LG Electronics Inc, Nokia Corp and Taiwan’s Inventec Appliances Corp (英華達), which is a handset manufacturing arm of Inventec Corp (英業達).
Earlier this year, China Telecom started offering 3G services to its customers using code division multiple access (CDMA) technology. CDMA is a rival standard to the dominant cellular standard GSM, or global system for mobile. VIA Telecom and the US’ Qualcomm Inc are the two major CDMA handset chip suppliers.
MediaTek Inc (聯發科), the biggest handset chip supplier in China, may move into CDMA handset chips before the end of the year after wrapping up licensing talks with Qualcomm, the Hsinchu-based company said.
Laying out its blueprint for next year, VIA Telecom plans to put more resources into developing new chips enabling high-speed data transmission on new-generation technologies chips for 3.5G and 4G (also known as Long Term Evolution) technologies, Chang said.
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
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
NEW PRODUCTS: MediaTek plans to roll out new products this quarter, including a flagship mobile phone chip and a GB10 chip that it is codeveloping with Nvidia Corp MediaTek Inc (聯發科) yesterday projected that revenue this quarter would dip by 7 to 13 percent to between NT$130.1 billion and NT$140 billion (US$4.38 billion and US$4.71 billion), compared with NT$150.37 billion last quarter, which it attributed to subdued front-loading demand and unfavorable foreign exchange rates. The Hsinchu-based chip designer said that the forecast factored in the negative effects of an estimated 6 percent appreciation of the New Taiwan dollar against the greenback. “As some demand has been pulled into the first half of the year and resulted in a different quarterly pattern, we expect the third quarter revenue to decline sequentially,”
ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip assembly and testing service provider, yesterday said it would boost equipment capital expenditure by up to 16 percent for this year to cope with strong customer demand for artificial intelligence (AI) applications. Aside from AI, a growing demand for semiconductors used in the automotive and industrial sectors is to drive ASE’s capacity next year, the Kaohsiung-based company said. “We do see the disparity between AI and other general sectors, and that pretty much aligns the scenario in the first half of this year,” ASE chief operating officer Tien Wu (吳田玉) told an
RSS