2014 March Issue
Asian Pacific Business Journal
Page 6
Samsung, LG Bring New Flagship Phones to Taiwan Taipei, March 19 (CNA) Samsung Electronics Co. and LG Electronics Inc. launched their new flagship smartphones in Taiwan Wednesday, intensifying the competition in a market where consumers prefer handsets larger than 5 inches.
In comparison, the LG G Pro 2 comes with a 5.9-inch full-HD IPS display with an extra slim bezel of 3.3mm, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 2.26GHz quad-core processor and a 13-megapixel camera.
The Samsung Galaxy S5 is waterproof and features a 5.1-inch 1080p display, a quad-core 2.5GHz processor, a 16-megapixel main camera, a fingerprint scanner embedded in its home button and 4G LTE connectivity.
The phone-tablet hybrid's newest feature, called "Knock Code", allows users to power on and unlock their G Pro 2 smartphones in one step by tapping their screens, according to LG.
The S5 will start at NT$22,900 (US$753) for a 16GB model and NT$23,900 for a 32GB model when it hits Taiwan stores on April 11.
The G Pro 2 will go on sale Thursday at a price of NT$20,900 for a 16GB model and NT$21,900 for a 32GB model.
Moon Sung-hyun, managing director of Samsung Taiwan, said worldwide sales of the Galaxy S series phones have reached a milestone of 200 million units since the first generation model was unveiled in 2010.
Kim Byung-hyung, president and chief executive of LG's Taiwan branch, said at the launch of the G Pro 2 that his company aims to sell 15,000 units of the phone per month starting April and a total of 100,000 units by the end of the year.
"We are very grateful. And we know that we only succeed when customers choose us. We know that we must continue to earn that choice," Moon said at the product launch event. "The Samsung Galaxy S5 is the perfect combination of all great practical features and allows you to have a smarter and more convenient mobile life," he said.
The South Korean firm has set a sales target in Taiwan of 450,000 mobile phones this year, up 50 percent from 300,000 units last year, touting a full range of products and a low comparison base, according to Kim.
to be favored by Taiwanese consumers, accounting for 42 percent of the country's overall smartphone sales in the fourth quarter of 2013, up from 35 percent in the third quarter. For the whole of 2013, 35 percent of the smartphones sold in Taiwan had a 5-inch or larger screen, a sharp increase from only 7 percent in 2012, the research firm said. The high penetration rate put Taiwan in third place behind Hong Kong and Singapore among countries that favor smartphones larger than 5 inches, IDC said.
Data from the research company IDC showed that 5-inch and larger smartphones continued
Acer TravelMate P645 Wins Red Dot Award
Taipei, March 25 (CNA) Acer's commercial notebook, the TravelMate P645, has won a Red Dot award in the category of product design after bagging an iF Product Design Award in Germany last month, Taiwan-based Acer Inc. announced Tuesday. "Winning two of the world's two prominent design competitions demonstrates that the Acer TravelMate P645 has clearly impressed the international expert panels with its durable design and security features," Acer Chief Marketing Officer Michael Birkin said in a press release.
A jury of 40 design professionals from 25 nations, including popular fashion designer Jimmy Choo, selected a list of Red Dot winners in product design Monday from among 4,815 entries. This year, a total of 1,816 manufacturers, designers and architects from 53 countries competed in 23 categories for the Red Dot product design awards. The TravelMate P645 was awarded in the computers and information technology category, Acer said. On its Facebook website, the multinational hardware and electronics maker touted the Trav-
elMate P645, which is equipped with a 14-inch full HD IPS anti-glare screen, as a product that offers "superior performance plus an array of reliability features and long battery life."
Tech HTC Unveils Competitor to Samsung Galaxy S5 Taipei, March 25 (CNA) Taiwan's HTC Corp. unveiled Tuesday in London and the United States the successor to its well-received One flagship phone, codenamed M8 within the company, to challenge leading players like Samsung Electronics Co. The M8 comes with a 5-inch 1080p display, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 quad-core 2.3GHz processor, on-screen buttons, a twin-sensor camera with dual-LED flash, dual speakers on the front, the Sense 6.0 user interface and longer battery life. The phone's highlighted "Duo" camera enables effects like post-capture focusing and clipping objects from one image to another, as well as high-definition recording and playback for slow motion, HTC said in a press release. The M8 will hit Taiwan stores March 28 at NT$21,900 (US$716) for a 16GB model, less expensive than Samsung's Galaxy S5 at NT$22,900 and Sony Mobile's Xperia Z2 at NT$23,900.
fourth quarter of 2013. The 4G LTE-enabled HTC smartphone will go on sale in North America April 10 and hit stores belonging to 230 global telecom operators and retail partners, a faster pace than the company's roll-out schedule for last year's HTC One.
But HTC Chairwoman Cher Wang has forecast that HTC will return to profitability in the second quarter of this year when its new products go on sale.
In late February, HTC took an aggressive position against rival Samsung, saying that consumers who intend to buy the Samsung Galaxy S5 will soon regret their choice when HTC unveils its next flagship phone.
Deutsche Bank predicted in early March that HTC will ship 2.5 million units of the M8 and 1.5 million units of its new mid-range Desire 816 in the second quarter of 2014, which could lead to a quarterly revenue growth of 70 percent.
The S5 is waterproof and features a 5.1-inch 1080p display, a Qualcomm quad-core 2.5GHz processor, a 16-megapixel main camera, a fingerprint scanner embedded in its home button and 4G LTE connectivity.
BNP Paribas said in a March 18 research note that HTC is emerging from the most difficult time in the company's history and that its new models are expected to boost its second-quarter consolidated sales by 51.9 percent from the previous quarter.
In an investor conference held in February, HTC said it anticipated that its consolidated sales for the first quarter will range between NT$34 billion and NT$36 billion, down 16-21 percent from the NT$42.9 billion in sales posted in the
HTC shares closed down 0.65 percent at NT$152.5 Tuesday in Taipei prior to the M8 announcement. (By Jeffrey Wu)