Vacancy rates for office space edged up 0.7 percent last quarter from three months earlier, but rental rates gained 1.8 percent, as corporate tenants remained cautious about rental expenditure amid the mild economic recovery, international property consultancy Jones Lang LaSalle said yesterday.
Vacancy rates for Grade-A office space rose to 11 percent in the January-to-March period, up 0.7 percent from the preceding quarter due to an increase of 22,000 ping (72,600m2) in new supply, Jones Lang LaSalle director Joe Lin (林大喬) said.
Rental rates averaged NT$2,433 per ping, up 1.8 percent from three months earlier, because landlords set higher asking prices and kept most of the new supply for personal use, Lin said.
Jones Lang LaSalle expects rentals for Grade-A office to pick up between 2 percent and 5 percent this year and recover to pre-financial crisis levels in 2015, given limited new supply in central business districts in the next few years, Lin said after a quarterly survey of 56 office buildings in the capital.
The room for rate hikes is also limited due to low rental yields, Lin said, because Taipei lags international cities in terms of rental yields.
“Despite encouraging economic data at home and abroad, corporate tenants put on a cautious attitude about rental expenditures on concerns over the modest pace of recovery,” the analyst told a media briefing.
Leasing activities accelerated in Dunhua South area last quarter with vacancy rates falling to 6.7 percent, compared with 13.8 percent in Xinyi District (信義) and 12.5 percent at Dunhua North area, as multinational corporations moved to Dunhua South area to cut costs, Lin said.
“A growing number of clients to indicates plans to relocate to suburban districts such as Neihu (內湖) and Nangang (南港) to strengthen financial efficiency,” he said.
As for the investment market, commercial property transactions totaled NT$25.4 billion (US$844.98 million) last quarter, more than four times the level of NT$4.67 billion a year earlier, despite the exit of domestic life insurance companies, Jones Lang LaSalle country managing director Tony Chao (趙正義) said.
Property disposal needs on the part of local technology firms accounted for the sharp increase, Chao said, adding more firms would take similar moves to revitalize idle assets.
Chao called on the Financial Supervisory Commission to lift the purchase ban on life insurers, saying property investments promise stable recurring incomes and are safer compared with other investment options for cash-loaded insurers.
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