Despite Taiwan’s economic slowdown in recent years, its wine market remains robust, showing growth in the area of high-priced collector wines, industry experts said on Saturday.
Demand for wine has grown steadily over the past five years, with high-grade wines being the main drivers, a report posted on iCheers (愛酒窩), the nation’s largest online seller of grape wines, said.
According to Bureau of Foreign Trade data for the first 10 months of last year, the average unit cost of wine imports was apparently higher than in the same period of 2012, with the average unit cost of “still wine” growing 11 percent, while consumption of high-priced, high-quality grape wines also rose significantly.
A iCheers sales report last year showed that the average price of grape wine sold on the website surged to NT$800 to NT$1,200 per bottle in last year from less than NT$800 in 2012, and has jumped to about NT$1,500 per bottle this year.
Overall, iCheers’ business turnover grew nearly 40 percent over the past year, the report said.
iCheers chief editor Pan Yun-chih (潘芸芝) said that the Web site has 3,000 types of wines on offer, compared with fewer than 800 in 2012.
The price range has also expanded, and is now NT$500 to NT$10,000, he said.
In addition, per capita spending has increased significantly, which shows that consumers are more willing to buy high-priced wines, Pan said.
The Web site’s marketing manager, Lin Hsiao-hsun (林孝恂), said Taiwan’s grape wine market is more mature than many other Asian countries’ and local consumers are more open to trying new products.
Compared with consumers in Hong Kong and China who still favor Bordeaux, Taiwan’s consumers are enthusiastic about fine quality wines from Spain, Italy and other countries, 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
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
US CONSCULTANT: The US Department of Commerce’s Ursula Burns is a rarely seen US government consultant to be put forward to sit on the board, nominated as an independent director Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday nominated 10 candidates for its new board of directors, including Ursula Burns from the US Department of Commerce. It is rare that TSMC has nominated a US government consultant to sit on its board. Burns was nominated as one of seven independent directors. She is vice chair of the department’s Advisory Council on Supply Chain Competitiveness. Burns is to stand for election at TSMC’s annual shareholders’ meeting on June 4 along with the rest of the candidates. TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) was not on the list after in December last