The production value of Taiwan’s information and communications technology (ICT) industry will show an approximately 30 percent year-on-year growth to reach NT$1.35 trillion (US$58.7 billion) this year, according to a report by the Market Intelligence Center (MIC) of the government-backed Institute for Information Industry.
MIC deputy head Chang Chi (張奇) said yesterday that Taiwan’s ICT industry has been recovering since the second half of last year after reeling from the global financial crisis in the first half of that year, and is expected to continue its growth momentum this year.
When looked at by sector, mobile telecommunications are expected to generate the highest production value of approximately NT$785.9 billion, or 58 percent of the total, followed by the cable communications sector at NT$232.3 billion, or 17 percent of the total, he said.
Meanwhile, the wireless communications sector’s revenues will reach NT$120.5 billion, or 9 percent of the total, and another 16 percent, or NT$212.8 billion, will come from exports of communication chips and spare parts, the MIC forecast.
Growth in the global ICT services market in the next few years will be driven by emerging markets such as China and India, the MIC said, noting that global mobile subscriptions reached 4.6 billion last year and are expected to reach 6 billion by 2013.
Meanwhile, up to 460 million households worldwide used broadband Internet last year, which translates into US$10.8 billion in revenues, and the number could reach 700 million households by 2013, according to the MIC.
It also forecast that global revenues of broadband services will grow by 10 percent this year.
The report also shows that the production value of business communications was about US$34.1 billion last year and could increase to US$57.8 billion by 2013, with integrated communications services expected to be the biggest contributor.
In terms of communication chips, the MIC anticipates that the shipments of MediaTek Inc (聯發科), the main producer of GSM/EDGE baseband chips, will exceed Qualcomm’s to make MediaTek the world’s largest cell phone baseband chip supplier.
The MIC said that shipments of global mobile handsets will hit 1.32 billion this year and top 1.5 billion by 2013, with smartphones occupying 25 percent to 30 percent of the market.
Driven by iPhone and Android, shipments of Taiwanese smartphones in the third quarter of this year will break the 23 million unit mark, the MIC said.
In addition, the production value of business broadband products will reach US$47.9 billion by 2013, mainly from Switch L2-L3 products, the MIC said.
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