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Intel, Acer Launch Liquid C1Feb 01, 2013 (SinoCast Daily Business Beat via COMTEX) -- Intel launched a smartphone product with the Android operating system, namely Liquid C1, in Bangkok, Thailand on February 31 with Taiwan-based PC maker Acer. With a retail price of USD 330 per unit, the terminal will be marketed in the Thai market first and then the Southeast Asian market. Mike Bell, director with mobile division of it, said in a telephone interview that it paid more attention to those fast-growing markets when making a decision to enter the mobile field. Liquid C1 is the ninth mobile terminal with an Intel chip launched within nine months and this indicates that amid a sales fall in the fields of both PCs and notebook PCs, the chip maker has achieved some in persuading some leading makers to adopt its mobile products. However, industry observers believe that both nVIDIA and Qualcomm have established a leading position in the field and there is no doubt that it will take it quite a long period of time to do so. Scott Bicheno, a senior analyst with Strategy Analytics, pointed out that first and also the most import, it should prove that it had had the ability to compete with others in the field. There were not any obvious technical shortages in its products, but they key was that the technology of those that had established a foothold in the field had been quite mature. Intel should have no other choice but to step into the mobile field. Due to a PC sales slowdown, it saw operating revenue fall three percent in the past quarter. Actually, it had experienced a slowdown in operating revenue since 2009. Obviously, it had realized that its market share was nibbled by terminals including iPads by Apple and in order to change the situation, it launched mobile phones with self-made chips in markets including Europe, Africa, Latin America, Russia, India and China in succession in the past year. People in the know disclosed that some mobile phones with the brand of operators including Orange that were sold on the mobile networks of Intel in both France and Britain were actually designed and manufactured by the firm itself. Last year, it persuaded ZTE Corporation (SEHK: 0763 and SZSE: 000063), a leading telecom equipment and network solution provider in China, and Lenovo Group Ltd. (SEHK: 0992), a top PC maker in the market, to adopt its chips in their mobile phones. The sales should not be pretty as both it and the latter two declined to reveal sales volume of products involved. (USD 1 = CNY 6.22) Source: www.163.com (February 01, 2013) |