Taiwanese passive component manufacturers should continue to seek to join the Samsung Electronics Co and Apple Inc supply chains, or actively enter automobile electronics to hedge against the negative outlook for the passive component industry, an industrial analyst said.
“The global passive component market is unlikely to return to the growth path because sales of consumer electronics have been adversely affected by the persistent eurozone debt crisis and weak job outlook in the US and European counties,” Industrial Economics & Knowledge Center (IEK) analyst Jeremy Tung (董鍾明) said in a report released recently.
The global market for passive components this year will decline 10.9 percent from last year to about US$20.18 billion, and the shipments will decrease 7 percent year-on-year to 2.73 trillion units, Tung said.
Of the shipments, passive components for smartphones and notebook computers would account for about 20 percent and 10 percent respectively, while passive components for tablet computers would account for between about 5 and 6 percent, he added.
Taiwanese passive component makers are not immune to the unstable macoeconomic environment, Tung said. He predicted that Taiwan’s passive component market would drop 10 percent to about NT$100 billion (US$3.39 billion) this year from last year.
In the first quarter, the number of Taiwanese passive component manufacturers posting gross margins between 10 percent and 20 percent remained flat, while the number of companies with gross margins at 20 percent dropped 33 percent, Tung said.
The number of companies with less than 10 percent in gross margins grew 66 percent from a year earlier, he said.
The changes indicated that local passive component manufacturers would face big challenges this year, Tung said.
Taiwanese producers must find their own way to break away from the unfavorable environment, Tung said.
Smartphones, notebook PCs, Ultrabooks, car electronics and conductive polymer capacitors would be the areas that offer opportunities for local makers to grow, Tung said.
Tung suggested Taiwanese manufacturers continue to seek partnerships with Samsung and Apple in the smartphone market.
Also, passive components are increasingly used in automotive applications in recent years and the average cost of electronic devices in a car accounts for more than 40 percent of the total cost, which would provide an opportunity for local firms to grow their profits because of higher prices, Tung said.
Taiwanese producers have also continued to expand into the markets for conductive polymer capacitors for applications on desktop PC motherboards, notebook computers, game consoles and home theaters, he said.
To improve profitability, local companies should enhance their ability to make raw materials in-house, reducing reliance on Japanese suppliers for supply, he said.
Currently, 70 percent of raw materials come from Japan, he said.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
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
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last