Taiwanese companies yesterday expressed their faith in the digital industry as a viable business for the future, if not the immediate future, in view of growing demand for digital televisions in the West.
At a launching ceremony for digital TV Special Interest Group (DTV SIG) yesterday in Taipei, company representatives said Taiwan's strong supply-chain expertise and manufacturing prowess would help the nation's companies surpass their counterparts in Japan and South Korea.
The organization, composed of government and research agencies as well as local manufacturers, aims to promote the nation's digital industry. The government has said it wants to reach its goal of digital-TV services in 80 percent of the nation's households by 2006.
"Taiwan has earned a reputation in integrated circuit (IC) and computer industries in the world, and the experience can help Taiwanese companies move to the digital TV sector, which combines both IC and computer technology," said Alan Pan (潘泰吉), general manager of the multimedia communications division at Tatung Co (大同), one of the biggest local electronics makers.
Pan suggested Taiwanese companies interested in exploiting the digital TV sector -- including high-definition flat-panel TV displays, digital tuners and other video appliances -- target the US market.
The US Federal Communications Commission in August last year mandated that by mid-2007, all TV receiver sets larger than 13 inches sold in the US must contain digital TV tuners, which is expected to boost development of digital television in the market, Pan said.
Against this backdrop, shipments of digital TV sets to the US are expected to total 33.5 million units by 2007, more than half of the worldwide total, the US-based market research firm InStat/MDR said in a report last March. InStat/MDR predicted the global demand for digital TV sets will reach 58 million at that time.
"This is a great opportunity for our high-tech companies," Pan said. "As long as they can work together to create more added value for the product such as turning the digital TV set to a home entertainment device by integrating computer and other home appliances."
However, Pan said local manufacturers should refrain from investing heavily on brandname building and using that brand image to gain more market share.
"In competing head-to-head with global consumer electronics giants such as Sony, Panasonic and Samsung, brand name is no longer a panacea in this digital TV sector," Pan said. "What consumers care about in the digital era is the content, not the box."
Anne Tien (
"Consumers still have high loyalty to home appliances, so it will be easier to contract manufacturing for leading companies than creating a new brand," Tien said.
TECH BOOST: New TSMC wafer fabs in Arizona are to dramatically improve US advanced chip production, a report by market research firm TrendForce said With Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) pouring large funds into Arizona, the US is expected to see an improvement in its status to become the second-largest maker of advanced semiconductors in 2027, Taipei-based market researcher TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) said in a report last week. TrendForce estimates the US would account for a 21 percent share in the global advanced integrated circuit (IC) production market by 2027, sharply up from the current 9 percent, as TSMC is investing US$65 billion to build three wafer fabs in Arizona, the report said. TrendForce defined the advanced chipmaking processes as the 7-nanometer process or more
Who would not want a social media audience that grows without new content? During the three years she paused production of her short do-it-yourself (DIY) farmer’s lifestyle videos, Chinese vlogger Li Ziqi (李子柒), 34, has seen her YouTube subscribers increase to 20.2 million from about 14 million. While YouTube is banned in China, her fan base there — although not the size of YouTube’s MrBeast, who has 330 million subscribers — is close to 100 million across the country’s social media platforms Douyin (抖音), Sina Weibo (新浪微博) and Xiaohongshu (小紅書). When Li finally released new videos last week — ending what has
OPEN SCIENCE: International collaboration on math and science will persevere even if the incoming Trump administration imposes strict controls, Nvidia’s CEO said Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said on Saturday that global cooperation in technology would continue even if the incoming US administration imposes stricter export controls on advanced computing products. US president-elect Donald Trump, in his first term in office, imposed restrictions on the sale of US technology to China citing national security — a policy continued under US President Joe Biden. The curbs forced Nvidia, the world’s leading maker of chips used for artificial intelligence (AI) applications, to change its product lineup in China. The US chipmaking giant last week reported record-high quarterly revenue on the back of strong AI chip
Qualcomm Inc’s interest in pursuing an acquisition of Intel Corp has cooled, people familiar with the matter said, upending what would have likely been one of the largest technology deals of all time. The complexities associated with acquiring all of Intel has made a deal less attractive to Qualcomm, said some of the people, asking not to be identified discussing confidential matters. It is always possible Qualcomm looks at pieces of Intel instead or rekindles its interest later, they added. Representatives for Qualcomm and Intel declined to comment. Qualcomm made a preliminary approach to Intel on a possible takeover, Bloomberg News and other media
RSS