Manufacturing revenue shrank 0.8 percent annually to NT$12.84 trillion (US$391.92 billion) in the first half of the year, dragged down by weaker-than-expected global smartphone demand and falling global crude oil prices, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday.
Revenue in the second half may be flattish or even decline from a year earlier because of a higher comparison base last year, the ministry said.
Last quarter alone, revenue dropped 2.9 percent to NT$6.46 trillion from a year earlier, as slowing smartphone demand negatively affected the sales performance of Taiwanese chip designers.
“Sales in the second quarter contracted on an annual basis for the first time in the past seven quarters,” Department of Statistics Deputy Director-General Yang Kuei-hsien (楊貴顯) said by telephone.
Global smartphone shipments are forecast to grow 10.4 percent to 1.44 billion units this year, down from last year’s 27.5 percent annual growth, International Data Corp said in its latest report, citing soft demand from China.
Yang said Taiwan’s panel industry also saw an annual decline in revenue last quarter, due to falling average selling prices and rising competition from China, Japan and South Korea.
The continual decline in global crude and stainless steel prices further contributed to falling revenues at Taiwanese petrochemical and steel companies, he said.
While the computer component, optical module and machinery sectors saw revenue rise last quarter, the scale of their growth was not enough to offset the sales drop in other manufacturing sectors, Yang said.
The computer component and optical module sector saw a 9.1 percent annual increase in sales to NT$2.14 trillion last quarter, fueled by robust demand for servers and the Apple Watch.
The machinery sector also grew mildly by 1.8 percent annually to NT$261.8 billion last quarter, thanks to demand from Taiwanese manufacturers building new plants in Southeast Asia, ministry data showed.
For this quarter, Yang said that manufacturing revenue would grow from last quarter, supported by the launches of Apple Inc’s new iPhones and other new products by global brands.
“The manufacturing industry’s revenue in the second half of the year would depend on the sales performance of Apple’s new iPhones,” he said.
Taichung reported the steepest fall in completed home prices among the six special municipalities in the first quarter of this year, data compiled by Taiwan Realty Co (台灣房屋) showed yesterday. From January through last month, the average transaction price for completed homes in Taichung fell 8 percent from a year earlier to NT$299,000 (US$9,483) per ping (3.3m²), said Taiwan Realty, which compiled the data based on the government’s price registration platform. The decline could be attributed to many home buyers choosing relatively affordable used homes to live in themselves, instead of newly built homes in the city’s prime property market, Taiwan Realty
The government yesterday approved applications by Alphabet Inc’s Google to invest NT$27.08 billion (US$859.98 million) in Taiwan, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said in a statement. The Department of Investment Review approved two investments proposed by Google, with much of the funds to be used for data processing and electronic information supply services, as well as inventory procurement businesses in the semiconductor field, the ministry said. It marks the second consecutive year that Google has applied to increase its investment in Taiwan. Google plans to infuse NT$25.34 billion into Charter Investments Ltd (特許投資顧問) through its Singapore-based subsidiary Fructan Holdings Singapore Pte Ltd, and
JET JUICE: The war on Iran’s secondary effects have seen fuel prices skyrocket, knocking flight schedules down to earth in return as airlines struggle with costs Airline passengers should brace for more irritation in the next few months as carriers worldwide cancel flights and ground planes to cope with stratospheric increases in jet-fuel prices. Dutch flag carrier KLM is the latest company to cut its schedule, saying on Thursday that it would scrap 80 return flights at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport in the coming month. That puts it in the same league as United Airlines Holdings Inc, Deutsche Lufthansa AG and Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd, which have all pruned itineraries to mitigate costs. Global capacity for next month has been reduced by about 3 percentage points, with all
FORESEEABLE CONSEQUENCES: New technology always comes with new innovations by the iniquitous in exploiting users for financial gain or more nefarious ends Artificial intelligence (AI) “agents” say they can save users time and energy by automating tasks, but the growing power of systems such as OpenClaw is putting cybersecurity experts on edge. Powered by a wave of hype, OpenClaw today says it has more than three million users worldwide. The system allows users to create so-called agents, tools based on a large language model (LLM) such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT or Anthropic PBC’s Claude, that can carry out online tasks. “We’ve moved from an AI you could talk with via a chatbot to an agentic AI, which can take action... the threat and the risks are
RSS