The nation’s online commerce is expected to surpass the NT$300 billion (US$9.12 billion) mark this year to reach NT$312 billion, demonstrating year-on-year growth of 30.54 percent from last year, the Council for Economic Planning and Development (CEPD) said on Thursday.
As a country, Taiwan has been relatively slow to embrace Internet commerce, the CEPD said.
“However, since 2006, when official figures were first published, Taiwan has reported the highest annual growth rate in the world. From 2006’s NT$134 billion to 2008’s NT$239 billion, there is an astounding 80 percent growth for the three-year duration,” it said.
The council has commissioned Market Intelligence & Consulting Institute (MIC, 產業情報研究所) under the Institute for Information Industry, to conduct research on its behalf.
Web commerce is divided into two categories: online auction (consumer-to-consumer) and online shopping (consumer-to-business). The forecast for this year showed NT$143 billion for the online auction business and NT$169 billion for online shopping, the council said on its Web site.
The local Internet economy has defied the global recession, showing increased double-digit growth year-on-year.
Meanwhile, the worldwide online commerce annual growth rate dropped to 7.8 percent last year, compared to 13.2 percent in 2007, and is expected to dip even lower to 6.2 percent this year, before a major pickup next year of 14.6 percent, assuming economic recovery, MIC’s research showed.
Worldwide online commerce has averaged around 10 percent year-on-year growth since 2007.
In dollar values, the global Internet commerce market is forecast to reach US$830.33 billion this year, compared to last year’s US$782.03 billion, and next year is estimated to reach US$951.37 billion, the CEPD said.
As a percentage of the nation’s total retail business, online commerce has increased its market share from 2.6 percent in 2006 to last year’s 3.7 percent, and is projected to reach 4.2 percent this year.
WASHINGTON’S INCENTIVES: The CHIPS Act set aside US$39 billion in direct grants to persuade the world’s top semiconductor companies to make chips on US soil The US plans to award more than US$6 billion to Samsung Electronics Co, helping the chipmaker expand beyond a project in Texas it has already announced, people familiar with the matter said. The money from the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act would be one of several major awards that the US Department of Commerce is expected to announce in the coming weeks, including a grant of more than US$5 billion to Samsung’s rival, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), people familiar with the plans said. The people spoke on condition of anonymity in advance of the official announcements. The federal funding for
HIGH DEMAND: The firm has strong capabilities of providing key components including liquid cooling technology needed for AI servers, chairman Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday revised its revenue outlook for this year to “significant” growth from a “neutral” view forecast five months ago, due to strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers from cloud service providers. Hon Hai, a major assembler of iPhones that is also known as Foxconn, expects AI server revenues to soar more than 40 percent annually this year, chairman Young Liu (劉揚偉) told investors. The robust growth would uplift revenue contribution from AI servers to 40 percent of the company’s overall server revenue this year, from 30 percent last year, Liu said. In the three-year period
LONG HAUL: Largan Energy Materials’ TNO-based lithium-ion batteries are expected to charge in five minutes and last about 20 years, far surpassing conventional technology Largan Precision Co (大立光) has formed a joint venture with the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI, 工研院) to produce fast-charging, long-life lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles, mobile electronics and electric storage units, the camera lens supplier for Apple Inc’s iPhones said yesterday. Largan Energy Materials Co (萬溢能源材料), established in January, is developing high-energy, fast-charging, long-life lithium-ion batteries using titanium niobium oxide (TNO) anodes, it said. TNO-based batteries can be fully charged in five minutes and have a lifespan of 20 years, a major advantage over the two to four hours of charging time needed for conventional graphite-anode-based batteries, Largan said in a
Taiwan is one of the first countries to benefit from the artificial intelligence (AI) boom, but because that is largely down to a single company it also represents a risk, former Google Taiwan managing director Chien Lee-feng (簡立峰) said at an AI forum in Taipei yesterday. Speaking at the forum on how generative AI can generate possibilities for all walks of life, Chien said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) — currently among the world’s 10 most-valuable companies due to continued optimism about AI — ensures Taiwan is one of the economies to benefit most from AI. “This is because AI is