Export orders hit a record high of US$43.31 billion last month, up 12.7 percent year-on-year and 13.4 percent month-on-month due to the launch of two new iPhones by Apple Inc that benefited supply chain companies, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday.
Total orders in the third quarter climbed to US$119.71 billion, up 8 percent year-on-year and 3.5 percent higher than the previous quarter, the ministry’s Department of Statistics Director-General Lin Lee-jen (林麗貞) said.
Orders for the first nine months totaled US$34.01 billion, an increase of 6.3 percent from the same period last year, the ministry’s statistics showed.
“The ministry expects Taiwan’s annual export orders to be more than US$46 billion by the end of this year based on the performances of various sectors,” Lin said.
Last month signaled the eighth consecutive month for the nation to post a year-on-year increase in exports orders, Lin said.
The double-digit growth in orders last month was mainly driven by orders for the nation’s information and communication technology products, she said.
Among the US$43.31 billion export orders last month, US$12.85 billion orders were for information and communication technology products, up 16.3 percent year-on-year from US$11.05 billion and also rising 36.3 percent from last month’s US$9.42 billion, she added.
The ministry now foresees strong demand for the new smartphone products and expects the upcoming Thanksgiving and Christmas shopping season to boost export orders.
“Orders for this month and next month will reflect the impact of the potential shopping season demand, but we are not sure about December yet,” Lin said, citing a ministry-conducted survey in which 21.2 percent of local manufacturers said they expect to receive more orders this month than last month.
The recent adulterated oil scandal is likely to have a limited impact on the nation’s export performance, because outbound shipments are primarily in the electronics sector, rather than the food sector, Lin said.
The US was Taiwan’s largest source of export orders last month, rising 15.5 percent year-on-year and 20.6 percent month-on-month to US$11.37 billion.
China and Hong Kong were second, with US$10.4 billion in orders last month, up 8.6 percent from a year earlier, Lin said.
“Rising orders from the US suggests economic recovery in Taiwan. In China, economic growth is slowing down,” Lin said.
Export orders to Europe were US$9.12 billion last month, up 22.6 percent year-on-year and 44 percent month-on-month, Lin said, adding that it was the 14th consecutive month for Taiwan to post a month-on-month increase in export orders to Europe.
As for orders from the ASEAN nations and Japan, numbers were US$4.54 billion and US$3.32 billion last month respectively.
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],”