Facebook Inc’s penetration rate in Taiwan is higher than in any other market in the world, an executive of the world’s largest social network said yesterday.
Facebook director for North Asia Jayne Leung (梁幼莓) told a press briefing that the number of active Facebook users in Taiwan reached 15 million per month in the fourth quarter of last year, representing about 65 percent penetration among the country’s population and edging out Hong Kong’s 61 percent for the top spot.
Taiwan had a Facebook penetration rate of about 60 percent in the second quarter of last year, when it was ranked top in Asia, according to Facebook data.
The number of daily users in Taiwan also reached 11 million during the fourth quarter, up 10 percent from the second quarter, while active daily mobile users increased by 20 percent to 8.5 million, Leung said.
Facebook did not give Taiwan user statistics for the third quarter.
“Taiwan is a very healthy market for us and we have seen huge growth here in the mobile segment,” Leung said.
Facebook plans to hire more sales and marketing staff in its North Asia offices this year to serve advertisers in key vertical industries, such as e-commerce, fast-moving consumer goods, telecommunications, tourism and finance, she said.
The social network will also add a new advertisement reseller in Taiwan to seek more business opportunities from mobile ads, Leung said.
In the fourth quarter of last year, Facebook’s mobile ad revenue accounted for 53 percent of its overall revenue, reaching US$1.25 billion, higher than the company’s total revenue in the same period of 2012.
Its mobile-only monthly active users amounted to 296 million during the October-to-December period of last year, nearly doubling the 157 million in the year-earlier period, according to Facebook data.
France cannot afford to ignore the third credit-rating reduction in less than a year, French Minister of Finance Roland Lescure said. “Three agencies have downgraded us and we can’t ignore this cloud,” he told Franceinfo on Saturday, speaking just hours after S&P lowered his country’s credit rating to “A+” from “AA-” in an unscheduled move. “Fundamentally, it’s an additional cloud to a weather forecast that was already pretty gray. It’s a call for lucidity and responsibility,” he said, adding that this is “a call to be serious.” The credit assessor’s move means France has lost its double-A rating at two of the
AI BOOST: Although Taiwan’s reliance on Chinese rare earth elements is limited, it could face indirect impacts from supply issues and price volatility, an economist said DBS Bank Ltd (星展銀行) has sharply raised its forecast for Taiwan’s economic growth this year to 5.6 percent, citing stronger-than-expected exports and investment linked to artificial intelligence (AI), as it said that the current momentum could peak soon. The acceleration of the global AI race has fueled a surge in Taiwan’s AI-related capital spending and exports of information and communications technology (ICT) products, which have been key drivers of growth this year. “We have revised our GDP forecast for Taiwan upward to 5.6 percent from 4 percent, an upgrade that mainly reflects stronger-than-expected AI-related exports and investment in the third
Mercuries Life Insurance Co (三商美邦人壽) shares surged to a seven-month high this week after local media reported that E.Sun Financial Holding Co (玉山金控) had outbid CTBC Financial Holding Co (中信金控) in the financially strained insurer’s ongoing sale process. Shares of the mid-sized life insurer climbed 5.8 percent this week to NT$6.72, extending a nearly 18 percent rally over the past month, as investors bet on the likelihood of an impending takeover. The final round of bidding closed on Thursday, marking a critical step in the 32-year-old insurer’s search for a buyer after years of struggling to meet capital adequacy requirements. Local media reports
RARE EARTHS: The call between the US Treasury Secretary and his Chinese counterpart came as Washington sought to rally G7 partners in response to China’s export controls China and the US on Saturday agreed to conduct another round of trade negotiations in the coming week, as the world’s two biggest economies seek to avoid another damaging tit-for-tat tariff battle. Beijing last week announced sweeping controls on the critical rare earths industry, prompting US President Donald Trump to threaten 100 percent tariffs on imports from China in retaliation. Trump had also threatened to cancel his expected meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in South Korea later this month on the sidelines of the APEC summit. In the latest indication of efforts to resolve their dispute, Chinese state media reported that
RSS