The nation’s export orders grew for the third consecutive month to US$38.87 billion last month, driven mainly by electronics due to robust demand for smartphones, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday.
The figure was up 2.4 percent month-on-month and 8.9 percent year-on-year, the ministry said in a report.
“Local electronics manufacturers may sustain order growth for more months as many handset brands are set to launch high-end, but low-priced products in emerging markets,” Lin Lee-jen (林麗貞), director of the ministry’s statistics department, told a press conference.
Cumulative orders during the first four months of the year totaled US$143.62 billion, up 4.3 percent from the previous year, the report showed.
By product, orders for electronics including semiconductors — the nation’s top export sector — expanded by 16.6 percent annually and 5 percent monthly to US$9.76 billion last month, while those for machine tools increased by 12.4 percent year-on-year to US$1.95 billion.
However, because of weaker-than-expected demand for flat panels and severe price competition, orders for precision equipment dropped 3.9 percent monthly and 13.3 percent annually to US$2.74 billion last month, Lin said.
China and Hong Kong remained the largest sources of orders last month, contributing US$10.22 billion, followed by the US with US$9.29 billion and Europe with US$6.47 billion.
This month, 21.7 percent of firms polled by the ministry said their orders would grow from last month, while 18 percent expected orders to fall. Nonetheless, orders for electronics, information and communication products and precision equipment are likely to increase due to seasonal factors.
DECOUPLING? In a sign of deeper US-China technology decoupling, Apple has held initial talks about using Baidu’s generative AI technology in its iPhones, the Wall Street Journal said China has introduced guidelines to phase out US microprocessors from Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) from government PCs and servers, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The procurement guidance also seeks to sideline Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software in favor of domestic options, the report said. Chinese officials have begun following the guidelines, which were unveiled in December last year, the report said. They order government agencies above the township level to include criteria requiring “safe and reliable” processors and operating systems when making purchases, the newspaper said. The US has been aiming to boost domestic semiconductor
Nvidia Corp earned its US$2.2 trillion market cap by producing artificial intelligence (AI) chips that have become the lifeblood powering the new era of generative AI developers from start-ups to Microsoft Corp, OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet Inc. Almost as important to its hardware is the company’s nearly 20 years’ worth of computer code, which helps make competition with the company nearly impossible. More than 4 million global developers rely on Nvidia’s CUDA software platform to build AI and other apps. Now a coalition of tech companies that includes Qualcomm Inc, Google and Intel Corp plans to loosen Nvidia’s chokehold by going
ENERGY IMPACT: The electricity rate hike is expected to add about NT$4 billion to TSMC’s electricity bill a year and cut its annual earnings per share by about NT$0.154 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has left its long-term gross margin target unchanged despite the government deciding on Friday to raise electricity rates. One of the heaviest power consuming manufacturers in Taiwan, TSMC said it always respects the government’s energy policy and would continue to operate its fabs by making efforts in energy conservation. The chipmaker said it has left a long-term goal of more than 53 percent in gross margin unchanged. The Ministry of Economic Affairs concluded a power rate evaluation meeting on Friday, announcing electricity tariffs would go up by 11 percent on average to about NT$3.4518 per kilowatt-hour (kWh)
OPENING ADDRESS: The CEO is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence at the trade show’s opening on June 3, TAITRA said Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) chairperson and chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) is to deliver the opening keynote speech at Computex Taipei this year, the event’s organizer said in a statement yesterday. Su is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing (HPC) in the artificial intelligence (AI) era to open Computex, one of the world’s largest computer and technology trade events, at 9:30am on June 3, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said. Su is to explore how AMD and the company’s strategic technology partners are pushing the limits of AI and HPC, from data centers to