ECONOMY
Gini coefficient falls
Taiwan’s Gini coefficient, a measure used to reflect income inequality, fell to 0.336 when based on household income last year, the lowest it has been since 2000, according to statistics the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics released on Friday last week. The coefficient ranges between 0 (complete equality) and 1 (complete inequality). Total household disposable income in the nation was NT$9.79 trillion (US$326.7 billion) last year, up 3 percent from the previous year, the data showed. Average disposable income was NT$942,000 per household and NT$294,000 per person, data showed.
TELECOMS
Chinese phones dominating
Shipments of Chinese smartphone brands will likely replace those of Samsung Electronics Co to dominate the Chinese market in the latter half of this year, DisplaySearch said on Friday. Chinese brands’ better integration of the supply chain and more low-profit business models have made them more competitive than the South Korean brand, the researcher said. High-end, low-budget brands have become the mainstream in China, a trend that Samsung and Apple Inc should be alert to, DisplaySearch said, adding that Samsung faces similar challenges in India.
AUTOMAKERS
Lexus tops in top sedans
Toyota Motor Corp’s Lexus took first place this year in customer satisfaction in Taiwan ahead of German brands Mercedes-Benz and BMW, according to an annual survey by market research firm JD Power on Thursday. Hotai Motor Co (和泰汽車), the sales agent for Toyota, last week said it had raised its forecast for Lexus shipments for this year by 20 percent to 13,000 units.
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
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
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