Asustek Computer Inc (華碩) aims to expand its share of Indonesia’s smartphone market to 18 percent next year by shipping 5 million handsets annually, a company executive said.
Chief executive officer Jerry Shen (沈振來) said Asustek’s smartphone shipments to Indonesia would total 4 million units this year, securing it a 15 percent share in the nation’s smartphone market and making it the second-largest smartphone supplier.
“Our goal is to overtake Samsung’s [Electronic Co] market position by 2017,” Shen told reporters on the sidelines of Asustek’s smartphone launch in Jakarta, on Thursday.
Samsung is the No.1 smartphone company in the nation with 25 percent market share.
Shen said the launch of Asustek’s four ZenFone 2 models in Indonesia was delayed by a government policy enacted in August, which requires all 4G devices be manufactured locally.
To comply with the new policy and meet local demand, Asustek started working with an Indonesian original design manufacturer and began sourcing components from local companies this quarter.
Indonesia is Asustek’s largest smartphone market, as an estimated shipment of 4 million handsets to the nation accounts for 20 percent of Asustek’s annual shipment target of 20 million units this year, Shen said, adding that the shipments to Indonesia were almost equal to the shipments to Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia and the Philippines combined.
Regarding the company’s smartphone strategy in Southeast Asia, Shen said consumers in the region prefer shopping at brick-and-mortar stores instead of e-commerce sites.
He said Asustek was able to climb to top positions in the region because it has expertise in traditional sales methods.
Asustek is upbeat about the smartphone market’s growth potential in Southeast Asia and expect to ship a total of 10 million smartphones to Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia and the Philippines next year.
Shen on Nov. 11 told investors that the company aims to ship 30 million smartphones next year; an increase of 50 percent from this year’s estimate of 20 million units.
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