Visa Infinite and Visa Platinum cardholders have become a major consumer group as purchases on those cards overseas last year grew 6 percent year-on-year to account for 66 percent of Visa cards' total usage, a report released yesterday by Visa International said.
The number of the two high-end cards surpassed 6.85 million as of the end of September, representing 28 percent of Visa's cards in circulation.
The average transaction on Infinite and Platinum Visa cards abroad was approximately NT$6,200 last year, compared with NT$5,700 for Visa credit cards, the report said.
"The market of classic and gold cards is shrinking and now we're targeting Platinum and Infinite cardholders as the major contributors," said Visa country manager in Taiwan Marco Ma (
Although the banking sector last year was dented by consumer bad loans, Taiwanese traveling abroad were big spenders, swiping close to NT$52 billion (US$1.6 billion) on their Visa credit cards. The total was similar to the previous year.
The figures showed the growing interest in overseas travel, which stimulated Visa to add card perquisites for buying airline tickets, eating out, staying in hotels and visiting golf courses in countries especially popular with tourists, Ma said.
The report said that most Taiwanese tourists chose destinations within Asia-Pacific, with credit card consumption within the region accounting for 60 percent of the total amount charged to cards last year.
Taiwanese Visa holders spent the most in the US at 22 percent of overall consumption.
Next came China at 16 percent, Hong Kong at 13 percent, Japan at 10 percent and the UK at 7 percent.
Card holders charged the largest average sums in Italy and France, swiping on average NT$13,600 and NT$10,730, respectively, mostly on luxury goods.
Average transaction amounts were also high in Macau, with an average of NT$10,780, mostly on sports and entertainment, the report said.
In terms of retail channels, popular locations included department stores (NT$3.6 billion), jewelry shops (NT$2.1 billion) and clothing stores (NT$1.6 billion).
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”