Google is planning to pour more funds into its hardware development team in Taiwan to seek a bigger market share for its line of Pixel smartphones in the competitive global market.
In a recent interview with the Central News Agency, Google vice president of hardware Elmer Peng (彭昱鈞) said that although Pixel models account for only a small fraction of the global smartphone market, Google is determined to strengthen its handset operations in Taiwan to roll out better products to attract more consumers.
In 2018, Google spent US$1.1 billion to acquire HTC Corp’s (宏達電) cellphone original design manufacturing assets, which had rolled out the Pixel line for the US client.
Photo courtesy of Google
HTC also transferred 2,000 engineers to work for the US tech giant and as a result, the team has continued to work on the Pixel for Google.
Peng, who was one of the engineers transferred to work for Google, used to be a vice president at HTC, responsible for developing a wide range of technologies such as audio and image applications.
At Google, he shoulders the responsibility of Pixel development.
The Pixel models represent Google’s own interpretation of an Android phone, which is able to integrate all of the services Google can provide, Peng said.
While the Taiwanese team is in charge of developing the Pixel, Google is a multinational company and the Pixel’s development requires more cooperation with Google’s US headquarters, as well as effective and efficient international coordination with its suppliers and many others to make a better smartphone, he said.
“I am sure that Google will continue to invest in the Taiwan hardware team as talents in the team are always able to come up with good and precise product ideas, and carry out their business plans well,” Peng said.
Google has set sights on grasping a larger share in the global smartphone market by improving its Pixel line, he said.
“Although the global smartphone market has been saturated, I believe as long as Pixel is able to appeal to as many consumers as possible, Google will achieve the goal of selling more smartphones,” he added.
Citing the newly unveiled 5.81-inch Pixel 4a as an example, Peng said that the model, taking advantage of a special design in its casing weighs only 143g, which allows users to hold and use the device more easily.
Google is planning to launch its first 5G smartphone models — the Pixel 4a (5G) and Pixel 5 — later this year.
Peng said the Google phones would work well under the current 5G era.
Taiwan’s foreign exchange reserves fell below the US$600 billion mark at the end of last month, with the central bank reporting a total of US$596.89 billion — a decline of US$8.6 billion from February — ending a three-month streak of increases. The central bank attributed the drop to a combination of factors such as outflows by foreign institutional investors, currency fluctuations and its own market interventions. “The large-scale outflows disrupted the balance of supply and demand in the foreign exchange market, prompting the central bank to intervene repeatedly by selling US dollars to stabilize the local currency,” Department of Foreign
Intel Corp is joining Elon Musk’s long-shot effort to develop semiconductors for Tesla Inc, Space Exploration Technologies Corp and xAI, marking a surprising twist in the chipmaker’s comeback bid. Intel would help the Terafab project “refactor” the technology in a chip factory, the company said on Tuesday in a post on X, Musk’s social media platform. That is a stage in the development process that typically helps make chips more powerful or reliable. The chipmaker’s shares jumped 4.2 percent to US$52.91 in New York trading on Tuesday. The Terafab project is a grand plan by Musk to eventually manufacture his own chips for
Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) yesterday said it plans to resume operations at two coal-fired power generators for three months to boost security of electricity supply as liquefied natural gas (LNG) supply risks are running high due to the Middle East conflict. The two coal-fired power generators are at Mailiao Power Plant in Yunlin County’s Mailiao Township (麥寮). The plant, operated by Formosa Plastics Group (台塑集團), supplied electricity to Taipower’s power grid until the end of last year. Taipower’s decision came about one month after Minister of Economic Affairs Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫) on March 10 said that the nation had no imminent
Some robotaxi passengers were left stranded in the middle of fast-moving traffic in a major Chinese city after their driverless vehicles stopped running, according to police and media reports on Wednesday. A preliminary investigation indicates more than 100 robotaxis came to a halt because of a “system malfunction,” police in the city of Wuhan said in a statement, without elaborating. No injuries were reported. One passenger told Chinese media that their robotaxi stopped after turning a corner. An instruction on a screen read: “Driving system malfunction. Staff are expected to arrive in 5 minutes.” After no one showed up, the passenger pushed
RSS