The official manufacturing purchasing managers’ index (PMI) tumbled below the neutral threshold to 48 last month, as firms cut purchasing activity amid weak demand and held a dim view on the business outlook, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday.
It is the first time the economic barometer has fallen into contraction territory since April 2016 after Apple Inc slashed orders for its latest-generation iPhone series, the Taipei-based think tank said.
The fate of the new iPhones plays an important role in manufacturing activity because Taiwan is home to suppliers of iPhone chips, cameras, touch panels, casings and other components.
Lackluster iPhone sales prompted Apple to cut orders, CIER acting president Wang Jiann-chyuan (王健全) said, adding that Samsung Electronics Co’s models were also facing a lack of demand.
PMI readings aim to gauge the health of the manufacturing industry, with values above 50 indicating an expansion and scores below suggesting a contraction.
The critical sub-index on new business shed 3.6 points to 47.6 as firms in almost all sectors reported poor sales, except for those in the food and textile sectors, the report said.
Suppliers of electronic parts and transportation machinery suffered the most, with new business gauges of 39.4 and 37.5 respectively, it showed.
The output sub-index also took a downturn to 49.2, as did the measure on employment to 49.3, it said.
Meanwhile, the sub-index on new export orders dropped 5.5 points to 41.6.
US President Donald Trump’s remarks that Washington might extend its heavy tariffs to Apple products rubbed more salt in the wound, Wang said.
Firms were downbeat on their business prospects with the sub-index falling from 40.6 to 33.7, the report found.
The confidence reading could pick up this month after the US and China agreed to a truce on new tariffs, Wang said.
“The 90-day truce provides the world with some respite as evidenced by the rebound across global bourses,” Wang said.
A permanent solution depends on whether the US and China can iron out their difference during trade negotiations in the next three months, he said.
The operating condition is better for service-oriented sectors, with the non-manufacturing purchasing activity index (NMI) bouncing back into positive territory last month at 52.3, the report said.
The current quarter is the high sales season for the non-manufacturing industry, Wang said.
Firms in the retail, financial, media and communications sectors reported improved business, while companies in the wholesale, hospitality, warehouse and logistics sectors reported a weak outlook, the institute said.
The seasonal rebound could prove short-lived, as all sectors hold a negative view about their business prospects, it said.
The six-month outlook fell to 36.5 last month, from 36.1 a month earlier.
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
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained