The value of purchases made on mobile phones last year grew 365 percent to NT$4,629 (US$152.45) per person from NT$994 the previous year, as more shoppers in Taiwan placed orders using handheld devices, the Market Intelligence and Consulting Institute (MIC, 資策會) said in a report yesterday.
The average value of purchases on PCs last year was much higher at NT$17,427 per person, but experienced a significantly milder increase of 1.3 percent from the NT$17,203 the previous year, the report showed.
“There is a growing trend of more people using their handheld devices to buy electronic products or clothing online,” MIC analyst Chen Ying-chu (陳映竹) said in a report.
Chen said online shopping is becoming increasingly individualized, compared to the “group buying” offered by many early adopters of mobile shopping sites or apps, which involves offering products at significantly reduced prices on the condition that a minimum number of buyers make the purchase.
The institute’s report was compiled based on a survey of 4,073 online shoppers aged 20 or above that was conducted in January and February.
The poll showed that the number of respondents who bought products using handheld devices or mobile apps last year increased by between 3 and 4 percent annually to account for 8.6 percent and 7.6 percent of total online shoppers respectively.
Respondents who said they surf the Internet every day spent about 2.6 hours daily searching for information on various Web sites last year, 0.4 hours of which was devoted to “window-shopping” at e-commerce sites, the survey said.
“It is understandable that more people buy online because most e-commerce sites make the shopping process simpler and quicker,” Chen said, citing the average of 20 minutes it takes online shoppers to complete a purchase.
As telecom operators prepare to launch 4G services as early as the second half of the year, the popularity of online shopping is likely to continue increasing this year from last year, the MIC said.
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
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”