The nation’s export orders rose 10.5 percent year-on-year to US$38.72 billion last month, boosted by continuing strong demand for electronics products, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday.
It marked the 12th straight month of year-on-year expansion, ministry data showed.
“The recovering US and European economies stimulated the purchase of Taiwan-made products,” Department of Statistics Director-General Lin Lee-jen (林麗貞) said at a news conference in Taipei.
Last month’s result was in line with the ministry’s forecast that orders would amount to US$38 billion to US$39 billion, the department said.
The US remained Taiwan’s largest market last month, with orders growing 7.7 percent annually to US$10.83 billion, primarily due to robust demand for electronic devices, as well as information and communications technology (ICT) products.
Orders from China and Hong Kong rose 10.7 percent year-on-year to US$9.73 billion on growing shipments of optical products, the ministry said.
Orders from European customers were US$7.25 billion last month, a 23.2 percent surge from a year earlier, which the ministry attributed to rising demand for ICT goods.
By products, orders for ICT shipments expanded 13.9 percent to US$10.89 billion and for electronics grew 4.2 percent to US$9.74 billion, the ministry said in a statement.
Orders for machinery goods increased 12.5 percent to US$1.85 billion from the same period last year, as global customers are more willing to invest in automated equipment amid an improving industry sentiment, the statement showed.
Global orders for petrochemical products grew 9.5 percent year-on-year to US$1.84 billion, while orders for chemicals rose 9.6 percent to US$1.74 billion on strong demand for ethylene glycol.
Basic metals also saw annual growth last month, with orders rising 12.8 percent annually to US$2.26 billion on the back of rising steel prices, the ministry said.
However, the nation’s export orders dropped 4 percent month-on-month from US$40.35 billion in June, statistics showed.
Lin attributed the decline to the seasonal effect, with global demand for mobile phone chips slowing last month.
For the first seven months of the year, export orders amounted US$262.35 billion, up 11.1 percent from the same period last year.
The ministry provided an optimistic outlook for the rest of the year based on its survey of vendors, as several benchmark industries are entering their peak season.
Many international vendors in the ICT industry are expected to place large orders next month as they gear up for new product launches, she added.
The ministry expects export orders for this month would grow 4.1 percent and 6.8 percent from the same period last year.
That would translate to orders of between US$39.5 billion and US$40.5 billion, the ministry said in a statement.
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
FUTURE PLANS: Although the electric vehicle market is getting more competitive, Hon Hai would stick to its goal of seizing a 5 percent share globally, Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), a major iPhone assembler and supplier of artificial intelligence (AI) servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s chips, yesterday said it has introduced a rotating chief executive structure as part of the company’s efforts to cultivate future leaders and to enhance corporate governance. The 50-year-old contract electronics maker reported sizable revenue of NT$6.16 trillion (US$189.67 billion) last year. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), has been under the control of one man almost since its inception. A rotating CEO system is a rarity among Taiwanese businesses. Hon Hai has given leaders of the company’s six