Samsung Electronics Taiwan Co (台灣三星電子) yesterday assured Taiwanese customers that there would be sufficient supply of its new flagship folding smartphone to satisfy demand, unlike the limited-run Galaxy Z Fold.
“We have enough supply for the initial wave of demand and we have set a sales target of 10 times the initial run,” Samsung Taiwan vice president Jacob Chen (陳啟蒙) said at the Galaxy Z Fold2 5G news conference at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport.
With a retail price of NT$71,888 (US$2,436), the new phone is to go on sale tomorrow at select e-commerce and telecom retail outlets, he said.
Photo: CNA
Like its predecessor, the new phone has a cover screen for quick use and opens up to reveal a bigger main screen that supports multi-app usage.
Aside from having an upgraded monitor, camera and hardware, the phone is 5G-enabled and comes with a two-year warranty, the company said.
Loyal VIP customers were treated to a flight to nowhere on a Starlux Airlines Co (星宇航空) flight yesterday, it added.
“It is the most expensive phone and we are taking it up to the sky,” Starlux chairman Chang Kuo-wei (張國煒) said at the event.
A Samsung VIP surnamed Huang (黃) said that as he finds the Galaxy Z Fold convenient and “good enough for now,” he is not considering upgrading to the new model.
Another VIP customer surnamed Hou (侯) said that he would be first in line when the new phone comes out.
“I buy everything Samsung comes out with,” Hou said.
DECOUPLING? In a sign of deeper US-China technology decoupling, Apple has held initial talks about using Baidu’s generative AI technology in its iPhones, the Wall Street Journal said China has introduced guidelines to phase out US microprocessors from Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) from government PCs and servers, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The procurement guidance also seeks to sideline Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software in favor of domestic options, the report said. Chinese officials have begun following the guidelines, which were unveiled in December last year, the report said. They order government agencies above the township level to include criteria requiring “safe and reliable” processors and operating systems when making purchases, the newspaper said. The US has been aiming to boost domestic semiconductor
Nvidia Corp earned its US$2.2 trillion market cap by producing artificial intelligence (AI) chips that have become the lifeblood powering the new era of generative AI developers from start-ups to Microsoft Corp, OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet Inc. Almost as important to its hardware is the company’s nearly 20 years’ worth of computer code, which helps make competition with the company nearly impossible. More than 4 million global developers rely on Nvidia’s CUDA software platform to build AI and other apps. Now a coalition of tech companies that includes Qualcomm Inc, Google and Intel Corp plans to loosen Nvidia’s chokehold by going
ENERGY IMPACT: The electricity rate hike is expected to add about NT$4 billion to TSMC’s electricity bill a year and cut its annual earnings per share by about NT$0.154 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has left its long-term gross margin target unchanged despite the government deciding on Friday to raise electricity rates. One of the heaviest power consuming manufacturers in Taiwan, TSMC said it always respects the government’s energy policy and would continue to operate its fabs by making efforts in energy conservation. The chipmaker said it has left a long-term goal of more than 53 percent in gross margin unchanged. The Ministry of Economic Affairs concluded a power rate evaluation meeting on Friday, announcing electricity tariffs would go up by 11 percent on average to about NT$3.4518 per kilowatt-hour (kWh)
OPENING ADDRESS: The CEO is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence at the trade show’s opening on June 3, TAITRA said Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) chairperson and chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) is to deliver the opening keynote speech at Computex Taipei this year, the event’s organizer said in a statement yesterday. Su is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing (HPC) in the artificial intelligence (AI) era to open Computex, one of the world’s largest computer and technology trade events, at 9:30am on June 3, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said. Su is to explore how AMD and the company’s strategic technology partners are pushing the limits of AI and HPC, from data centers to