In a twist to the US’ import ban on various HTC Corp (宏達電) smartphones, the company yesterday said some of its products blocked by US customs because of patent-infringement concerns had been allowed to enter the US market after passing the customs’ review.
“Some of our products have passed the review and have been delivered to our telecoms operators’ clients in the US,” HTC said in a statement submitted to the Taiwan Stock Exchange yesterday.
The Taoyuan-based handset maker’s statement came after two of its flagship mobile phones, HTC One X and HTC EVO 4G LTE, were prevented by US customs from entering the country after the US International Trade Commission ruled late last year that HTC had infringed on a crucial patent held by Apple Inc.
“The company is closely working with the US customs to speed up the review,” HTC said in the statement. “The company is confident that the problem will be resolved soon.”
The US customs’ review went faster than a possible three-week examination estimated by Jeff Pu (蒲得宇), who tracks the handset industry for Fubon Securities (富邦證券), and that means the ban could have less impact on HTC’s revenue this quarter.
Originally, Pu expected US customs could spend up to three weeks checking HTC’s products, resulting in a reduction of 10 to 15 percent in the company’s revenue this quarter.
HTC, the world’s No. 5 smartphone maker, told investors last month that it expected revenue to grow 55 percent quarterly to NT$105 billion (US$3.55 billion) this quarter, recovering from a product transition period.
Last quarter, HTC’s shipments dropped 17 percent to 7.68 million units, compared with 9.3 million units in the previous year, because of competition from Apple Inc and Samsung, according to market researcher Gartner Inc’s statistics.
NO BREAKTHROUGH? More substantial ‘deliverables,’ such as tariff reductions, would likely be saved for a meeting between Trump and Xi later this year, a trade expert said China launched two probes targeting the US semiconductor sector on Saturday ahead of talks between the two nations in Spain this week on trade, national security and the ownership of social media platform TikTok. China’s Ministry of Commerce announced an anti-dumping investigation into certain analog integrated circuits (ICs) imported from the US. The investigation is to target some commodity interface ICs and gate driver ICs, which are commonly made by US companies such as Texas Instruments Inc and ON Semiconductor Corp. The ministry also announced an anti-discrimination probe into US measures against China’s chip sector. US measures such as export curbs and tariffs
The US on Friday penalized two Chinese firms that acquired US chipmaking equipment for China’s top chipmaker, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯國際), including them among 32 entities that were added to the US Department of Commerce’s restricted trade list, a US government posting showed. Twenty-three of the 32 are in China. GMC Semiconductor Technology (Wuxi) Co (吉姆西半導體科技) and Jicun Semiconductor Technology (Shanghai) Co (吉存半導體科技) were placed on the list, formally known as the Entity List, for acquiring equipment for SMIC Northern Integrated Circuit Manufacturing (Beijing) Corp (中芯北方積體電路) and Semiconductor Manufacturing International (Beijing) Corp (中芯北京), the US Federal Register posting said. The
READY TO HELP: Should TSMC require assistance, the government would fully cooperate in helping to speed up the establishment of the Chiayi plant, an official said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said its investment plans in Taiwan are “unchanged” amid speculation that the chipmaker might have suspended construction work on its second chip packaging plant in Chiayi County and plans to move equipment arranged for the plant to the US. The Chinese-language Economic Daily News reported earlier yesterday that TSMC had halted the construction of the chip packaging plant, which was scheduled to be completed next year and begin mass production in 2028. TSMC did not directly address whether construction of the plant had halted, but said its investment plans in Taiwan remain “unchanged.” The chipmaker started
MORTGAGE WORRIES: About 34% of respondents to a survey said they would approach multiple lenders to pay for a home, while 29.2% said they would ask family for help New housing projects in Taiwan’s six special municipalities, as well as Hsinchu city and county, are projected to total NT$710.65 billion (US$23.61 billion) in the upcoming fall sales season, a record 30 percent decrease from a year earlier, as tighter mortgage rules prompt developers to pull back, property listing platform 591.com (591新建案) said yesterday. The number of projects has also fallen to 312, a more than 20 percent decrease year-on-year, underscoring weakening sentiment and momentum amid lingering policy and financing headwinds. New Taipei City and Taoyuan bucked the downturn in project value, while Taipei, Hsinchu city and county, Taichung, Tainan and Kaohsiung
RSS