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.
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: The chipmaker last month raised its capital spending by 28 percent for this year to NT$32 billion from a previous estimate of NT$25 billion Contract chipmaker Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (力積電子) yesterday launched a new 12-inch fab, tapping into advanced chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS) packaging technology to support rising demand for artificial intelligence (AI) devices. Powerchip is to offer interposers, one of three parts in CoWoS packaging technology, with shipments scheduled for the second half of this year, Powerchip chairman Frank Huang (黃崇仁) told reporters on the sidelines of a fab inauguration ceremony in the Tongluo Science Park (銅鑼科學園區) in Miaoli County yesterday. “We are working with customers to supply CoWoS-related business, utilizing part of this new fab’s capacity,” Huang said, adding that Powerchip intended to bridge
Microsoft Corp yesterday said that it would create Thailand’s first data center region to boost cloud and artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure, promising AI training to more than 100,000 people to develop tech. Bangkok is a key economic player in Southeast Asia, but it has lagged behind Indonesia and Singapore when it comes to the tech industry. Thailand has an “incredible opportunity to build a digital-first, AI-powered future,” Microsoft chairman and chief executive officer Satya Nadella said at an event in Bangkok. Data center regions are physical locations that store computing infrastructure, allowing secure and reliable access to cloud platforms. The global embrace of AI
Qualcomm Inc, the world’s biggest seller of smartphone processors, gave an upbeat forecast for sales and profit in the current period, suggesting demand for handsets is increasing after a two-year slump. Revenue in the three months ended in June will be US$8.8 billion to US$9.6 billion, the company said in a statement Wednesday. Excluding certain items, earnings will be US$2.15 to US$2.35 a share. Analysts had projected sales of US$9.08 billion and earnings of US$2.16 a share. The outlook signals that the smartphone market has begun to bounce back, tracking with Qualcomm’s forecast that demand would gradually recover this year. The San