HTC Corp (宏達電) yesterday announced it is to offer discounts for its virtual reality (VR) headset, the HTC Vive, to customers in Europe as part of the annual Black Friday shopping days.
The discounts of £150 (US$199) and up are to be available from authorized Vive distributors in Europe and on Vive.com from tomorrow to Monday, the company said.
When Euorpean consumers spend £599 to buy a Vive, they will also receive an earphone device — the Duluxe Audio strap — designed exclusively for the headset, as well as a free copy of the Google-developed VR painting app Tilt Brush, a redemption code for the game Fallout 4 VR and a pre-order code for DOOM VFR.
Viveport, Vive’s app store, will also offer discounts for Black Friday.
Vive Studios, a Vive content developer, will offer discounts of up to 75 percent during Black Friday, HTC said.
The Vive is part of HTC’s efforts to diversify from its core smartphone market, where it faces tough competition from Apple Inc, Samsung Electronics Co and many Chinese smartphone brands.
HTC unveiled the Vive in March 2015 at the Mobile World Congress and global sales began in April last year, but it has continued to report losses.
Its VR business contributes a small fraction of the company’s revenue, while competition in the global smartphone market continues to hurt the vendor’s bottom line, analysts say.
HTC in the third quarter reported a net loss for the 10th consecutive quarter. The loss hit NT$3.1 billion (US$103.3 million), topping the NT$1.95 billion loss recorded in the second quarter.
The Eurovision Song Contest has seen a surge in punter interest at the bookmakers, becoming a major betting event, experts said ahead of last night’s giant glamfest in Basel. “Eurovision has quietly become one of the biggest betting events of the year,” said Tomi Huttunen, senior manager of the Online Computer Finland (OCS) betting and casino platform. Betting sites have long been used to gauge which way voters might be leaning ahead of the world’s biggest televised live music event. However, bookmakers highlight a huge increase in engagement in recent years — and this year in particular. “We’ve already passed 2023’s total activity and
BIG BUCKS: Chairman Wei is expected to receive NT$34.12 million on a proposed NT$5 cash dividend plan, while the National Development Fund would get NT$8.27 billion Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday announced that its board of directors approved US$15.25 billion in capital appropriations for long-term expansion to meet growing demand. The funds are to be used for installing advanced technology and packaging capacity, expanding mature and specialty technology, and constructing fabs with facility systems, TSMC said in a statement. The board also approved a proposal to distribute a NT$5 cash dividend per share, based on first-quarter earnings per share of NT$13.94, it said. That surpasses the NT$4.50 dividend for the fourth quarter of last year. TSMC has said that while it is eager
‘IMMENSE SWAY’: The top 50 companies, based on market cap, shape everything from technology to consumer trends, advisory firm Visual Capitalist said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) was ranked the 10th-most valuable company globally this year, market information advisory firm Visual Capitalist said. TSMC sat on a market cap of about US$915 billion as of Monday last week, making it the 10th-most valuable company in the world and No. 1 in Asia, the publisher said in its “50 Most Valuable Companies in the World” list. Visual Capitalist described TSMC as the world’s largest dedicated semiconductor foundry operator that rolls out chips for major tech names such as US consumer electronics brand Apple Inc, and artificial intelligence (AI) chip designers Nvidia Corp and Advanced
Pegatron Corp (和碩), an iPhone assembler for Apple Inc, is to spend NT$5.64 billion (US$186.82 million) to acquire HTC Corp’s (宏達電) factories in Taoyuan and invest NT$578.57 million in its India subsidiary to expand manufacturing capacity, after its board approved the plans on Wednesday. The Taoyuan factories would expand production of consumer electronics, and communication and computing devices, while the India investment would boost production of communications devices and possibly automotive electronics later, a Pegatron official told the Taipei Times by telephone yesterday. Pegatron expects to complete the Taoyuan factory transaction in the third quarter, said the official, who declined to be