Thirty local firms made this year’s Global Innovation 1000 study — one fewer than last year — as global firms assign more importance to research and development (R&D) to stay competitive and profitable, accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (PwC) said in a report on Tuesday.
R&D spending totaled NT$444.3 billion (US$14.45 billion) in Taiwan, a 0.2 percent increase from last year, which accounted for 3.3 percent of their combined revenue, PwC Taiwan said.
The growth lags far behind an 11.4 percent increase for the world’s top 1,000 companies, which spent a record US$782 billion on R&D this year, PwC Taiwan executive vice president Paul Liu (劉鏡清) said.
Revenues for the 1,000 firms also grew 11.4 percent annually, even though the newest figures left R&D intensity, or innovation spending as a percentage of revenue, unchanged at 4.5 percent from last year, the annual survey said.
However, the 88 high-leverage innovators saw their sales advancing 2.6 times as fast as the pool, while their market value soared 2.9 times higher, it said.
Local firms Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), Pegatron Corp (和碩), Pou Chen Corp (寶成工業) and Siliconware Precision Industries Co (矽品精密) were recognized as high-leverage innovators, the survey said.
With regard to R&D spending, Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) leads the pack in Taiwan, followed by TSMC, MediaTek Inc (聯發科), Delta Electronics Inc (台達電) and Asustek Computer Inc (華碩), it said.
R&D spending by the top 20 companies reached US$214.5 billion, accounting for 27.4 percent of the total, the survey said.
For the second year in a row, Amazon.com Inc led the top-20 list with R&D expenditure of US$22.6 billion, up a massive 40.6 percent from last year, it found. Alphabet Inc was second, spending US$16.2 billion.
Facebook Inc posted the biggest climb on the top-20 list, up six places from its position last year to No. 14, it said.
All surveyed regions increased their R&D expenditure, with China staging the biggest increase of 34 percent, followed by Europe’s 14 percent gain and North America’s 7.8 percent increase, the survey said.
R&D spending rose in the computing and electronics, healthcare, auto, and software and Internet — the four industries that dominate the top 20 list, it said.
The survey observed a US$13 billion R&D surge in spending in computing and electronics, from flat spending over the previous five years, almost a third of which was attributable to increased spending at Samsung Electronics Co and Apple Inc.
WEAKER ACTIVITY: The sharpest deterioration was seen in the electronics and optical components sector, with the production index falling 13.2 points to 44.5 Taiwan’s manufacturing sector last month contracted for a second consecutive month, with the purchasing managers’ index (PMI) slipping to 48, reflecting ongoing caution over trade uncertainties, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The decline reflects growing caution among companies amid uncertainty surrounding US tariffs, semiconductor duties and automotive import levies, and it is also likely linked to fading front-loading activity, CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said. “Some clients have started shifting orders to Southeast Asian countries where tariff regimes are already clear,” Lien told a news conference. Firms across the supply chain are also lowering stock levels to mitigate
Six Taiwanese companies, including contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), made the 2025 Fortune Global 500 list of the world’s largest firms by revenue. In a report published by New York-based Fortune magazine on Tuesday, Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), ranked highest among Taiwanese firms, placing 28th with revenue of US$213.69 billion. Up 60 spots from last year, TSMC rose to No. 126 with US$90.16 billion in revenue, followed by Quanta Computer Inc (廣達) at 348th, Pegatron Corp (和碩) at 461st, CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) at 494th and Wistron Corp (緯創) at
NEW PRODUCTS: MediaTek plans to roll out new products this quarter, including a flagship mobile phone chip and a GB10 chip that it is codeveloping with Nvidia Corp MediaTek Inc (聯發科) yesterday projected that revenue this quarter would dip by 7 to 13 percent to between NT$130.1 billion and NT$140 billion (US$4.38 billion and US$4.71 billion), compared with NT$150.37 billion last quarter, which it attributed to subdued front-loading demand and unfavorable foreign exchange rates. The Hsinchu-based chip designer said that the forecast factored in the negative effects of an estimated 6 percent appreciation of the New Taiwan dollar against the greenback. “As some demand has been pulled into the first half of the year and resulted in a different quarterly pattern, we expect the third quarter revenue to decline sequentially,”
ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip assembly and testing service provider, yesterday said it would boost equipment capital expenditure by up to 16 percent for this year to cope with strong customer demand for artificial intelligence (AI) applications. Aside from AI, a growing demand for semiconductors used in the automotive and industrial sectors is to drive ASE’s capacity next year, the Kaohsiung-based company said. “We do see the disparity between AI and other general sectors, and that pretty much aligns the scenario in the first half of this year,” ASE chief operating officer Tien Wu (吳田玉) told an
RSS