Despite its shrinking sales and job cuts, Taiwan-based HTC Corp (宏達電) hit a high note in Japan’s customer satisfaction ranking, beating most other Android phone makers, including Samsung Electronics Co.
The ranking, released on Friday by Oricon Inc, showed Apple Inc had the highest satisfaction rating in Japan’s smartphone market, with an overall score of 72.85 points, followed by Sony Mobile at 71.36 points, Fujitsu Ltd 69.47 at, HTC at 69.19, Samsung at 68.77, Sharp Corp at 68.69, LG Electronics Inc at 67.16 and Kyocera Corp at 66.65.
Oricon surveyed a total of 12 smartphone makers that sold products in Japan in 2013 and last year. The survey, which received 18,847 valid samples, is based on seven categories: quality of connection, product operability, design, performance, camera functions, integrity of features and company reliability.
Apple ranked seventh in the integrity of features category, but ranked first in the remaining six categories.
HTC ranked second in both the integrity of features and product operability categories and third in design, with lower rankings in product performance (fifth), camera functions (sixth), reliability of company (sixth) and quality of connection (eighth).
However, HTC’s high customer satisfaction did not translate into actual sales in Japan, where the Taiwanese firm failed to rank among the top five smartphone makers in the second quarter of this year.
According to an Aug. 27 report published by IDC Japan, Apple had a dominant 39.1 percent share of Japan’s smartphone market in the April-June quarter, ahead of Sony Mobile’s 14.9 percent, Sharp’s 13.2 percent, Samsung’s 12 percent and Fujitsu’s 7.6 percent.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s biggest contract chipmaker, booked its first-ever profit from its Arizona subsidiary in the first half of this year, four years after operations began, a company financial statement showed. Wholly owned by TSMC, the Arizona unit contributed NT$4.52 billion (US$150.1 million) in net profit, compared with a loss of NT$4.34 billion a year earlier, the statement showed. The company attributed the turnaround to strong market demand and high factory utilization. The Arizona unit counts Apple Inc, Nvidia Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc among its major customers. The firm’s first fab in Arizona began high-volume production
VOTE OF CONFIDENCE: The Japanese company is adding Intel to an investment portfolio that includes artificial intelligence linchpins Nvidia Corp and TSMC Softbank Group Corp agreed to buy US$2 billion of Intel Corp stock, a surprise deal to shore up a struggling US name while boosting its own chip ambitions. The Japanese company, which is adding Intel to an investment portfolio that includes artificial intelligence (AI) linchpins Nvidia Corp and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), is to pay US$23 a share — a small discount to Intel’s last close. Shares of the US chipmaker, which would issue new stock to Softbank, surged more than 5 percent in after-hours trading. Softbank’s stock fell as much as 5.4 percent on Tuesday in Tokyo, its
The prices of gasoline and diesel at domestic fuel stations are to rise NT$0.1 and NT$0.4 per liter this week respectively, after international crude oil prices rose last week, CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) announced yesterday. Effective today, gasoline prices at CPC and Formosa stations are to rise to NT$27.3, NT$28.8 and NT$30.8 per liter for 92, 95 and 98-octane unleaded gasoline respectively, the companies said in separate statements. The price of premium diesel is to rise to NT$26.2 per liter at CPC stations and NT$26 at Formosa pumps, they said. The announcements came after international crude oil prices
SETBACK: Apple’s India iPhone push has been disrupted after Foxconn recalled hundreds of Chinese engineers, amid Beijing’s attempts to curb tech transfers Apple Inc assembly partner Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), also known internationally as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), has recalled about 300 Chinese engineers from a factory in India, the latest setback for the iPhone maker’s push to rapidly expand in the country. The extraction of Chinese workers from the factory of Yuzhan Technology (India) Private Ltd, a Hon Hai component unit, in southern Tamil Nadu state, is the second such move in a few months. The company has started flying in Taiwanese engineers to replace staff leaving, people familiar with the matter said, asking not to be named, as the
RSS