Hewlett-Packard Co (HP) is narrowing its focus to the traditional notebook market, despite the recent successes of Acer Inc(宏碁)and AsusTek Computer Inc(華碩電腦)with netbooks, a company official said.
“The competition in the netbook sphere is extremely intense. There’s very little margin in that category, and we at HP believe the recent netbook frenzy is due to the back-to-school season, when kids are buying laptops for school,” Clair Chang (張淑雯), manager of HP Taiwan’s product marketing department, said at a media briefing.
“As the market normalizes, we see more and more consumers going back to quality traditional notebooks. And traditional notebooks will be our company focus going forward,” Chang said yesterday as the company introduced a suite of Elitebook-brand models targeted at business users.
Asked about what effect the concentrated strategic move would have on its global sales target this year, Chang said HP’s corporate sales target has not been revised downward, despite the global economic slowdown.
Moreover, she said, HP will continue to be the world’s No. 1 computer vendor this year.
HP plans to release its second generation of Mini-Note models before the end of the year. The company declined to say how many models it expects to ship or what the specifications of the new generation would be.
HP’s new Elitebook series was inspired by aircraft engineering and features a magnesium alloy chassis designed to operate in a variety of working conditions, said Monty Wong (王漢彪), vice president and manager of HP’s personal computing systems group.
Elitebook prices range from NT$65,900 to NT$99,900.
MULTIFACETED: A task force has analyzed possible scenarios and created responses to assist domestic industries in dealing with US tariffs, the economics minister said The Executive Yuan is tomorrow to announce countermeasures to US President Donald Trump’s planned reciprocal tariffs, although the details of the plan would not be made public until Monday next week, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said yesterday. The Cabinet established an economic and trade task force in November last year to deal with US trade and tariff related issues, Kuo told reporters outside the legislature in Taipei. The task force has been analyzing and evaluating all kinds of scenarios to identify suitable responses and determine how best to assist domestic industries in managing the effects of Trump’s tariffs, he
TIGHT-LIPPED: UMC said it had no merger plans at the moment, after Nikkei Asia reported that the firm and GlobalFoundries were considering restarting merger talks United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電), the world’s No. 4 contract chipmaker, yesterday launched a new US$5 billion 12-inch chip factory in Singapore as part of its latest effort to diversify its manufacturing footprint amid growing geopolitical risks. The new factory, adjacent to UMC’s existing Singapore fab in the Pasir Res Wafer Fab Park, is scheduled to enter volume production next year, utilizing mature 22-nanometer and 28-nanometer process technologies, UMC said in a statement. The company plans to invest US$5 billion during the first phase of the new fab, which would have an installed capacity of 30,000 12-inch wafers per month, it said. The
Taiwan’s official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) last month rose 0.2 percentage points to 54.2, in a second consecutive month of expansion, thanks to front-loading demand intended to avoid potential US tariff hikes, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. While short-term demand appeared robust, uncertainties rose due to US President Donald Trump’s unpredictable trade policy, CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) told a news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s economy this year would be characterized by high-level fluctuations and the volatility would be wilder than most expect, Lien said Demand for electronics, particularly semiconductors, continues to benefit from US technology giants’ effort
‘SWASTICAR’: Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s close association with Donald Trump has prompted opponents to brand him a ‘Nazi’ and resulted in a dramatic drop in sales Demonstrators descended on Tesla Inc dealerships across the US, and in Europe and Canada on Saturday to protest company chief Elon Musk, who has amassed extraordinary power as a top adviser to US President Donald Trump. Waving signs with messages such as “Musk is stealing our money” and “Reclaim our country,” the protests largely took place peacefully following fiery episodes of vandalism on Tesla vehicles, dealerships and other facilities in recent weeks that US officials have denounced as terrorism. Hundreds rallied on Saturday outside the Tesla dealership in Manhattan. Some blasted Musk, the world’s richest man, while others demanded the shuttering of his
RSS