Sales in the wholesale, retail and bar and restaurant industries totaled NT$859.5 billion (US$25.38 billion) last month, down about NT$35.2 billion, or 8.23 percent, from the previous year and down 3.58 percent from January, the latest figures released by the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) showed yesterday.
The ministry’s Department of Statistics said that the Lunar New Year holiday this year falling in January accounted in part for the dollar value gap between last month’s retail, bar and restaurant sectors and figures posted for the same period last year, when the holiday fell in February.
Additionally, the effects of the continued slide in global consumer demand continued to be felt last month, with wholesale figures dropping 7.9 percent year-on-year to NT$587.3 billion, while growing 4.83 percent from January.
The domestic wholesale industry, which reflects the country’s import and export businesses, suffered its worst year-on-year declines, at 26.77 percent, and arrived at NT$565 billion in January, down 6.52 percent from December.
Furthermore, the retail, bar and restaurant sectors declined 9.55 percent and 3.51 percent year-on-year to NT$242.6 billion and NT$29.6 billion respectively last month, government data showed.
Officials from the ministry’s statistics department said by telephone yesterday that to do a fair comparison, it would be better to look at aggregate domestic trade during January and February between this year and last year.
Asked when domestic trade would rebound, an official said “it all depends on when global demand picks up.”
Aggregate trade reached NT$1.750.9 trillion, a contraction of 14.12 percent from same period last year. Of the three leading business sectors, only the bar and restaurant sectors managed to sustain growth, at 0.5 percent, while the wholesale and retail sectors dropped 18.57 percent and 4.65 percent respectively.
Meanwhile, all nine categories in the wholesale sector recorded a contraction from the same period last year.
Home electronics, chemicals, and building materials showed the largest declines at 31.19 percent, 27.14 percent, and 26.80 percent respectively.
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
FUTURE PLANS: Although the electric vehicle market is getting more competitive, Hon Hai would stick to its goal of seizing a 5 percent share globally, Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), a major iPhone assembler and supplier of artificial intelligence (AI) servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s chips, yesterday said it has introduced a rotating chief executive structure as part of the company’s efforts to cultivate future leaders and to enhance corporate governance. The 50-year-old contract electronics maker reported sizable revenue of NT$6.16 trillion (US$189.67 billion) last year. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), has been under the control of one man almost since its inception. A rotating CEO system is a rarity among Taiwanese businesses. Hon Hai has given leaders of the company’s six