The nation’s industrial output contracted by 5.32 percent last month from a year earlier, virtually unchanged from a revised 5.75 percent decline in August, as inventory digestion dragged on for all makers except chemical product suppliers, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday.
“The data show the industry has yet to emerge from a protracted inventory adjustment, which has extended into the current quarter,” Department of Statistics Deputy Director-General Yang Kuei-hsien (楊貴顯) told a media briefing.
The situation might improve with the advent of Christmas sales season in the West, but could remain soft compared with levels a year earlier, Yang said.
The government’s industrial production gauge measures output in five major industries — manufacturing, mining and quarrying, electricity and gas supply, water supply, and architectural engineering — and is expressed as a percentage of real output in the base year of 2011 with a score of 100.
The latest production gauge showed that output from the manufacturing sector — which accounts for more than 90 percent of industrial output — dropped 5.6 percent last month from a year earlier.
A closer look at the various sectors within the manufacturing industry show that output from the electronics sector dropped 7.46 percent last month from a year earlier, with semiconductor makers posting a 7.68 percent decline and flat-panel and critical components suppliers printing an 18.81 percent fall, the report showed.
Electronics firms weighed 31.68 percent of total manufacturing output as the nation is home to the world’s leading contract chipmakers, display vendors and camera lens vendors.
Solar battery suppliers proved to be the exception with production jumping 24.64 percent last month from a year earlier, thanks to demand from China, the report said.
During the July-to-September period, industrial production weakened 4.56 percent from a year earlier, while output from the manufacturing sector dropped 4.65 percent annually, the report showed, boding ill for third-quarter GDP figures that are to be announced on Friday next week.
For the first nine months, industrial production shrank by a mild 0.19 percent from a year earlier, while the manufacturing sector’s output managed 0.13 percent gain year-on-year, the report said.
An outlook survey printed 45.1 percent for this month, suggesting a continued inventory adjustment event though the output value might grow modestly, Yang said.
In particular, car and auto-parts makers are upbeat about business prospects after emerging from the lunar Ghost Month and typhoons that dented production by 4.41 percent last month and by 5.7 percent last quarter, Yang said.
Revenues from non-manufacturing sectors — including wholesale, retailers and restaurant operators — dropped 4.5 percent year-on-year to NT$1.19 trillion (US$36.60 billion) last month, a separate report showed.
Wholesale revenue amounted to NT$833.9 billion last month, dropping 5.3 percent from a year earlier, weighed by lower demand for building materials, memory chips, flat panels and steel products, the report said.
Retail sales registered a 3 percent annual decline to NT$321 billion, attributable to lackluster car and fuel purchases, the report added.
Dining expenditure gained 1.5 percent year-on-year to NT$33.2 billion last month, slowing from pickups of 2.3 percent and 2.9 percent in August and July, the report said.
The ministry said its survey among local retailers and restaurant operators showed that they expect business to strengthen this month, but wholesale companies have adopted a conservative view.
The ongoing anniversary promotions among department stores might spur demand in line with the high season, Yang said.
SEMICONDUCTORS: The German laser and plasma generator company will expand its local services as its specialized offerings support Taiwan’s semiconductor industries Trumpf SE + Co KG, a global leader in supplying laser technology and plasma generators used in chip production, is expanding its investments in Taiwan in an effort to deeply integrate into the global semiconductor supply chain in the pursuit of growth. The company, headquartered in Ditzingen, Germany, has invested significantly in a newly inaugurated regional technical center for plasma generators in Taoyuan, its latest expansion in Taiwan after being engaged in various industries for more than 25 years. The center, the first of its kind Trumpf built outside Germany, aims to serve customers from Taiwan, Japan, Southeast Asia and South Korea,
Gasoline and diesel prices at domestic fuel stations are to fall NT$0.2 per liter this week, down for a second consecutive week, CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) announced yesterday. Effective today, gasoline prices at CPC and Formosa stations are to drop to NT$26.4, NT$27.9 and NT$29.9 per liter for 92, 95 and 98-octane unleaded gasoline respectively, the companies said in separate statements. The price of premium diesel is to fall to NT$24.8 per liter at CPC stations and NT$24.6 at Formosa pumps, they said. The price adjustments came even as international crude oil prices rose last week, as traders
SIZE MATTERS: TSMC started phasing out 8-inch wafer production last year, while Samsung is more aggressively retiring 8-inch capacity, TrendForce said Chipmakers are expected to raise prices of 8-inch wafers by up to 20 percent this year on concern over supply constraints as major contract chipmakers Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and Samsung Electronics Co gradually retire less advanced wafer capacity, TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) said yesterday. It is the first significant across-the-board price hike since a global semiconductor correction in 2023, the Taipei-based market researcher said in a report. Global 8-inch wafer capacity slid 0.3 percent year-on-year last year, although 8-inch wafer prices still hovered at relatively stable levels throughout the year, TrendForce said. The downward trend is expected to continue this year,
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which supplies advanced chips to Nvidia Corp and Apple Inc, yesterday reported NT$1.046 trillion (US$33.1 billion) in revenue for last quarter, driven by constantly strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) chips, falling in the upper end of its forecast. Based on TSMC’s financial guidance, revenue would expand about 22 percent sequentially to the range from US$32.2 billion to US$33.4 billion during the final quarter of 2024, it told investors in October last year. Last year in total, revenue jumped 31.61 percent to NT$3.81 trillion, compared with NT$2.89 trillion generated in the year before, according to
RSS