The nation’s export orders last month expanded 3.9 percent year-on-year and 13.3 percent month-on-month to US$42.96 billion, marking their second consecutive monthly increase, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday.
“Last month’s increase was mainly driven by Apple Inc’s iPhone 7 series and other smartphone brands’ mid and low-end models,” Department of Statistics Director-General Lin Lee-jen (林麗貞) told a news conference.
The launch of the Apple Watch series 2 also lent support to export orders last month, Lin added.
Lin said the orders of semiconductors, passive components, information and communication products, electronic goods and basic metal products all saw a significant increase last month from the same period last year.
Orders of information and communications products last month increased 8 percent year-on-year to US$14.63 billion, while those of electronics goods expanded 10.1 percent to US$11.6 billion, the highest levels on record, the data showed.
However, the plastics and rubber goods and petrochemical products sectors remained depressed last month, with the two sectors posting a 7.3 percent and a 10.3 percent annual decline in orders respectively, because of low crude oil prices, Lin said.
By export destination, the US, Europe, China and Hong Kong were the major sources of orders last month, Lin said.
Orders from the US and Europe last month surged 18.2 percent and 14.8 percent year-on-year to US$12.9 billion and US$9.45 billion respectively, while China and Hong Kong’s orders increased 3.7 percent to US$9.73 billion, the data showed.
Growth momentum of export orders should extend this month on demand for smartphones, wearable devices and notebooks, Lin said.
The Christmas holiday season in Europe and the US is expected to trigger inventory-building demand for consumer electronics goods this month, she said.
Therefore, export orders for this month are forecast to be from US$43.5 billion to US$44.5 billion, which would represent annual growth of 2.2 percent to 4.6 percent, Lin said.
In the first nine months of the year, export orders totaled US$317 billion, representing a 3.9 percent decline from the same period last year, data showed.
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