The official manufacturing purchasing managers’ index (PMI) stood at 58.8 last month, comfortably above the neutral mark for the 18th consecutive month as local firms benefited from inventory demand for next-generation smartphones, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday.
The improvement extended to the non-manufacturing index (NMI), which stood at 55.2, and the growth momentum for both sectors is likely to intensify this quarter due to the high sales season.
“The latest PMI and NMI data reflect general expansions in operating conditions for most Taiwanese firms, thanks to a stable economic recovery at home and abroad,” CIER president Wu Chung-shu (吳中書) told reporters.
The PMI and NMI readings aim to gauge the health of the manufacturing and non-manufacturing sectors, with scores higher than 50 indicating expansion and values lower than the threshold suggesting contraction.
Upcoming launches of products by global brands including Apple Inc have shored up the businesses of local technology firms as evidenced by a robust new order sub-index value of 63.2, the survey said.
The sub-index on industrial output stood at 60.9, while the employment sub-index rose to 57.6, indicating positive and strong improvement, the survey said.
Robust demand pushed up input prices, sending the raw material prices sub-index higher for the 18th straight month to 73, an increase of 9.8 percentage points from a month earlier, it said.
Firms across the manufacturing sector are upbeat about their business prospects as the six-month outlook sub-index stood at 63.8, slightly lower than the 63.9 posted a month earlier, the survey said.
Firms in the non-manufacturing sector were less optimistic, with the six-month business outlook sub-index slipping marginally below the neutral threshold at 49.8.
Domestic financial institutions in particular have become conservative about their businesses going forward, striking a stark contrast with earlier confidence, Wu said.
Local hospitality providers and construction firms shares that pessimism, he added.
The private Nikkei Taiwan manufacturing purchasing managers’ index reached a similar conclusion with a value of 54.3 for last month.
The Nikkei report showed that the manufacturing sector saw further growth momentum last month, with the latest data showing strong increases in output, new orders and employment, said Annabel Fiddes, chief economist at IHS Markit, which produced the private index.
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