Acer Inc (宏碁), the world’s fourth-largest PC maker, yesterday said it plans to launch wearable devices later this year, jumping on the bandwagon of popular mobile devices.
“We actually had demonstrated our products [wearable devices] to some of the company’s clients at the Consumer Electronics Show earlier this month,” said Peter Shieh (謝金全), vice president of Acer’s corporate account business division under the company’s Greater China regional operation department.
“The company is still developing certain types of wearable devices. We certainly aim to play a role in the new market,” he told reporters on the sidelines of a product launch event.
Photo: CNA
He did not said if the wearable products would include smart watches. In collaboration with telecom carrier Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信), Acer yesterday launched its new smartphone product, called the Liquid Z5, in Taipei. The new smartphone runs on Google Inc’s Android 4.2 Jelly Bean mobile operating platform and is equipped with MediaTek Inc’s (聯發科) MT 6572 1.3 GHz dual-core processor, a 5-inch display and 5 megapixel camera.
Shieh said Acer also planned to launch smartphones supporting 4G this year to meet consumers’ needs for faster wireless data transmission. He added that Acer will consider collaborating with the nations’ top three telecom carriers — Chunghwa Telecom, Taiwan Mobile Co (台灣大哥大) and Far EasTone Telecommunications Co (遠傳電信) — to help boost sales of its smartphones this year. Acer plans to sell between 140,000 and 175,000 smartphones in the home market this year, Shieh said.
That is between 100 percent and 150 percent more than 70,000 units of smartphones Acer sold in Taiwan last year, he added.
According to Acer’s internal financial report, up to 90 percent of the company’s smartphone sales were generated from telecom carriers’ purchases last year, Shieh said, forecasting that the percentage would remain the same this year.
“Given telecom carriers’ extensive sales channels, Acer has to collaborate with operators to sell its smartphone products in Taiwan and other countries as well,” Fubon Securities Co (富邦證券) analyst Ange Wu (吳淵傑) said by telephone.
Wu said Acer, like its largest domestic rival, Asustek Computer Inc (華碩), can make profits of between 20 and 30 percent of each smartphone’s sales price by selling smartphones to telecom carriers.
However, unlike China’s Lenovo Group (聯想), the world’s biggest PC maker, Acer has to differentiate its products from others and build strong brand loyalty to stay competitive in the smartphone market because “Lenovo has a huge home market that Acer lacks,” Wu said.
Separately, in a filing to the Taiwan Stock Exchange, Acer yesterday said its former chairman and chief executive officer Wang Jeng-tang (王振堂) had resigned from the company’s board of directors before his term was to end in June.
Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (阿里巴巴) founder Jack Ma (馬雲) has been living in Tokyo for almost six months after disappearing from public view following China’s crackdown on the tech sector, the Financial Times reported yesterday, citing multiple unnamed sources. The billionaire has kept a low profile since the crackdown, which has included Chinese regulators scrapping the initial public offering of Ma’s Ant Group Co (螞蟻集團) and issuing Alibaba with record fines. However, the Times said he has spent much of the past six months with his family in Tokyo and other parts of Japan, along with visits to the US and Israel. The
FACTORY TUMULT: The departure of new workers impact production less than the quarantines imposed on existing employees, a worker at China’s ‘iPhone city’ said Turmoil at Apple Inc’s key manufacturing hub in Zhengzhou is likely to result in a production shortfall of almost 6 million iPhone Pro units this year, a person familiar with assembly operations said. The situation remains fluid at the plant and the estimate of lost production could change, the person said, asking not to be named discussing private information. Much depends on how quickly Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), the Taiwanese company that operates the facility, can get people back to assembly lines after violent protests against COVID-19 restrictions. If lockdowns continue in the weeks ahead, production could be set further
HOLIDAY SEASON OMEN: Low-cost brands and high-end retailers had the most foot traffic, leaving mid-range stores struggling on what used to be their biggest sales day US retailers discounted heavily on Black Friday to clear out bloated inventories, but customers responded with only modest traffic, leaving profitability in doubt for many chains. Brick-and-mortar retailers, which were hit hard by COVID-19 closures and shoppers seeking to avoid the virus, saw in-store traffic on Friday tick up 2.9 percent from last year’s shopping event, data compiled by Sensormatic Solutions showed. US consumers are still spending, but they are growing more cautious after contending this year with the highest inflation rates in four decades. They are also keeping a sharper lookout for deals, and retailers — many of them still heavy
‘REVOLUTION’: Elon Musk complained over a 30 percent fee Apple collects on Apple Store transactions and said the technology company has stopped advertising on Twitter Twitter Inc owner Elon Musk on Monday opened fire against Apple Inc over its tight control of what is allowed on the App Store, saying the iPhone maker has threatened to oust his recently acquired social media platform. Musk also joined the chorus crying foul over a 30 percent fee Apple collects on transactions via its App Store — the sole gateway for applications to get onto its billion-plus mobile devices. A series of Twitter posts fired off by Musk included a meme of a car with his first name on it veering onto a highway off-ramp labeled “Go to War,” instead
RSS