Export orders last month rose 5.1 percent from a year earlier to a new high of US$48.99 billion, as global technology brands launched new-generation devices, benefiting local firms in their supply chains, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday.
The momentum is likely to continue at a similar pace or slip slightly this month, as sales of the latest smartphone models disappoint, despite the advent of the holiday season in the West, the ministry said.
Export orders, a bellwether of actual shipments one to three months later, might fall to somewhere between US$48 billion and US$49 billion this month, Department of Statistics Director-General Lin Lee-jen (林麗貞) said.
“Sales of technology devices are usually strongest in the fourth quarter, as new product launches spur replacement demand,” Lin told a media briefing in Taipei.
However, the ongoing trade row between the US and China has cast a shadow on the landscape, prompting firms to turn conservative, Lin said.
Taiwan is home to the world’s leading chipmakers, chip designers, camera lenses, flat panels and other critical components used in smartphones, laptops, connected vehicles, Internet of Things and artificial intelligence applications.
Export orders for information and communications technology products last month picked up 3 percent to a record US$16.35 billion, as local firms benefited from inventory demand linked to the launch of smartphones and wearable devices by major brands, Lin said.
Electronics orders rose 6.4 percent to US$12.7 billion, while optoelectronics orders gained 3.5 percent to US$2.26 billion, the ministry’s report said, adding that customers from the US and China accounted for the bulk of demand.
Orders for non-technology products were mixed.
Chemical orders advanced 22 percent from a year earlier, while plastic and base metal orders posted a low single-digit percentage increase, it said.
“Oil price changes to a large degree explained market directions,” Lin said.
Machinery goods orders squeezed a fractional 0.4 percent increase, as companies turned conservative about equipment upgrades amid the trade dispute, Lin said.
A majority of firms, or 59.5 percent, expect flat sales ahead, while 24.8 percent expect business to decline, Lin said.
Demand for flat panels used in smartphones dropped by 10 to 20 percent, as sales of new models were weaker than expected, Lin said, alluding to the new iPhone series.
Large-sized panel prices softened, while demand showed an improvement, Lin said.
Standard Chartered Bank said that export orders might have peaked with less sanguine data ahead.
“A less favorable base is likely to place a lid on growth in the coming months” as evidenced by the slowdown in tech orders, the bank’s Taipei-based economist Tony Phoo (符銘財) said in a note.
The government yesterday approved applications by Alphabet Inc’s Google to invest NT$27.08 billion (US$859.98 million) in Taiwan, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said in a statement. The Department of Investment Review approved two investments proposed by Google, with much of the funds to be used for data processing and electronic information supply services, as well as inventory procurement businesses in the semiconductor field, the ministry said. It marks the second consecutive year that Google has applied to increase its investment in Taiwan. Google plans to infuse NT$25.34 billion into Charter Investments Ltd (特許投資顧問) through its Singapore-based subsidiary Fructan Holdings Singapore Pte Ltd, and
Micron Technology Inc is a driving force pushing the US Congress to pass legislation that would put new export restrictions on equipment its Chinese competitors use to make their chips, according to people familiar with the matter. A US House of Representatives panel yesterday was to vote on the “MATCH Act,” a bill designed to close gaps in restrictions on chipmaking equipment. It would also pressure foreign companies that sell equipment to Chinese chipmaking facilities to align with export curbs on US companies like Lam Research Corp and Applied Materials Inc. The bill targets facilities operated by China’s ChangXin Memory Technologies Inc
Singapore-based ride-hailing and delivery giant Grab Holdings’ planned acquisition of Foodpanda’s Taiwan operations has yet to enter the formal review stage, as regulators await supplementary documents, the Fair Trade Commission (FTC) said yesterday. Acting FTC Chairman Chen Chih-min (陳志民) told the legislature’s Economics Committee that although Grab submitted its application on March 27, the case has not been officially accepted because required materials remain incomplete. Once the filing is finalized, the FTC would launch a formal probe into the deal, focusing on issues such as cross-shareholding and potential restrictions on market competition, Chen told lawmakers. Grab last month announced that it would acquire
SECOND-RATE: Models distilled from US products do not perform the same as the original and undo measures that ensure the systems are neutral, the US’ cable said The US Department of State has ordered a global push to bring attention to what it said are widespread efforts by Chinese companies, including artificial intelligence (AI) start-up DeepSeek (深度求索), to steal intellectual property from US AI labs, according to a diplomatic cable. The cable, dated Friday and sent to diplomatic and consular posts around the world, instructs diplomatic staff to speak to their foreign counterparts about “concerns over adversaries’ extraction and distillation of US AI models.” Distillation is the process of training smaller AI models using output from larger, more expensive ones to lower the costs of training a powerful new
RSS