Ongoing lawsuits with archrival Apple Inc have not deterred HTC Corp (宏達電) from spending yesterday, as it announced the acquisition of a US cloud computing services provider to beef up its competitiveness in the smartphone market.
HTC said it would spend less than US$18.5 million to purchase Dashwire Inc, a Seattle-based company that offers cloud computing solutions that connect consumers’ various mobile devices.
Dashwire is the brains behind the Dashworks platform, which provides mobile and Web applications that enable users to personalize their smartphones and access mobile content using multiple devices. Dashwire will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of HTC, according to a company statement.
Photo: Bloomberg
“People want to access all of their important content wherever they are, on any device. The addition of Dashwire’s sync services and mobile cloud computing experience strengthens our ability to deliver these services,” Fred Liu (劉慶東), president of engineering and operations, said in the HTC statement.
HTC said it will utilize Dashwire’s solutions to enhance its HTCSense.com cloud computing service that it launched last year.
The world’s No. 5 smartphone brand has embarked on a number of patent purchases and acquisitions to enhance its mobile capability, given the heated competition, patent lawsuits and more players developing their own software offerings.
Last month, the company spent US$300 million to acquire S3 Graphics Co, a US-based graphic chip designer, hoping to land some bargaining chips in its patent lawsuits with Apple. HTC is also spending US$75 million by 2014 to acquire 82 issued patents and 14 patent applications from US telecommunications equipment maker ADC Telecommunications Inc to strengthen its wireless communications technology.
In March, HTC announced it would spend US$10 million buying an 11.1 percent stake in online music service provider KKBOX Inc to beef up its online music offerings.
In February, HTC spent ￡30 million (US$48 million) on the acquisition of Saffron Media Group Ltd, which develops software for delivering content over the Internet, and US$40 million on games-on-demand provider OnLive Inc to help the firm entice customers to its tablet and smartphone offerings.
Separately, HTC yesterday reported record revenues of NT$45.11 billion (US$1.56 billion) for last month, up 83.29 percent year-on-year.
Cumulative revenue from the beginning of the year to last month was NT$273.67 billion, up 121.56 percent compared with the same period last year.
Power supply and electronic components maker Delta Electronics Inc (台達電) yesterday said second-quarter revenue is expected to surpass the first quarter, which rose 30 percent year-on-year to NT$118.92 billion (US$3.71 billion). Revenue this quarter is likely to grow, as US clients have front-loaded orders ahead of US President Donald Trump’s planned tariffs on Taiwanese goods, Delta chairman Ping Cheng (鄭平) said at an earnings conference in Taipei, referring to the 90-day pause in tariff implementation Trump announced on April 9. While situations in the third and fourth quarters remain unclear, “We will not halt our long-term deployments and do not plan to
‘SHORT TERM’: The local currency would likely remain strong in the near term, driven by anticipated US trade pressure, capital inflows and expectations of a US Fed rate cut The US dollar is expected to fall below NT$30 in the near term, as traders anticipate increased pressure from Washington for Taiwan to allow the New Taiwan dollar to appreciate, Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行) chief economist Lin Chi-chao (林啟超) said. Following a sharp drop in the greenback against the NT dollar on Friday, Lin told the Central News Agency that the local currency is likely to remain strong in the short term, driven in part by market psychology surrounding anticipated US policy pressure. On Friday, the US dollar fell NT$0.953, or 3.07 percent, closing at NT$31.064 — its lowest level since Jan.
The US dollar was trading at NT$29.7 at 10am today on the Taipei Foreign Exchange, as the New Taiwan dollar gained NT$1.364 from the previous close last week. The NT dollar continued to rise today, after surging 3.07 percent on Friday. After opening at NT$30.91, the NT dollar gained more than NT$1 in just 15 minutes, briefly passing the NT$30 mark. Before the US Department of the Treasury's semi-annual currency report came out, expectations that the NT dollar would keep rising were already building. The NT dollar on Friday closed at NT$31.064, up by NT$0.953 — a 3.07 percent single-day gain. Today,
The New Taiwan dollar and Taiwanese stocks surged on signs that trade tensions between the world’s top two economies might start easing and as US tech earnings boosted the outlook of the nation’s semiconductor exports. The NT dollar strengthened as much as 3.8 percent versus the US dollar to 30.815, the biggest intraday gain since January 2011, closing at NT$31.064. The benchmark TAIEX jumped 2.73 percent to outperform the region’s equity gauges. Outlook for global trade improved after China said it is assessing possible trade talks with the US, providing a boost for the nation’s currency and shares. As the NT dollar
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