Online retailer Pinkoi.com yesterday unveiled a project to invest in more than 10 local brands in a bid to capture the nation’s rapidly expanding creative industry.
The investments are to be made via a new fund set up by Cherubic Ventures Co (心元), which has invested in Pinkoi.
The Taipei-based start-up that specializes in the sale of original design goods is one of the largest e-commerce platforms in Taiwan, and has expanded its reach across Asia to include Japan, China, Hong Kong and Thailand.
“The creative industry makes up 4.8 percent of Taiwan’s GDP, which accounts for 10 percent of the market in Asia,” Pinkoi CEO and founder Peter Yen (顏君庭) said.
Local brands often struggle to reach a bigger audience, so the company provides them a stage to better show off their designs and to sell internationally, Yen said.
The company in 2013 reported revenue of US$2.5 million, but has not disclosed its revenue since.
“Local governments are investing and encouraging growth in the creative industry as we realize its strong cultural influence and business potential,” said Chen Yue-yi (陳悅宜), director of the Ministry of Culture’s Department of Cultural and Creative Development.
The South Korean creative industry in 2017 recorded an output value of NT$3.3 trillion (US$107 billion), compared with NT$834 billion in Taiwan, Chen said.
The creative industry is now a booming sector in the global economy, Pinkoi said, citing a report by the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).
The value of creative goods globally has doubled from US$208 billion in 2002 to US$509 billion in 2015, with an annual compound growth rate of more than 7 percent, the report said.
Asia alone contributed US$228 billion, representing almost half of the overall value of creative goods worldwide — double that of Europe, data showed.
Taiwan, China, Singapore, India and Thailand were among the top 10 best-performing markets in terms of trade, the report said.
“The creative economy has both commercial and cultural worth,” UNCTAD Division on International Trade and Commodities Director Pamela Coke-Hamilton said. “This dual value has led governments worldwide to focus on expanding and developing their creative economies as part of economic diversification strategies and efforts to stimulate prosperity and well-being.”
SUPPLY HICCUPS: Poor manufacturing yields at Apple’s overseas suppliers have caused at least one maker of its new MiniLED displays to pause production, sources said The next-generation display destined to be a highlight of Apple Inc’s upcoming top-tier iPad Pro is facing production issues that could lead to short initial supplies of the new device, people familiar with the matter said. The Cupertino, California-based tech giant plans to showcase a new MiniLED display technology in the 12.9-inch iPad Pro set to be announced as early as the second half of this month. However, the firm’s overseas suppliers are dealing with poor manufacturing yields, the people who asked not to be named discussing sensitive matters said. At least one of the MiniLED makers has had to pause production as
END OF AN ERA: The Boeing 747-400 jumbo jets have served the airline well, but new-generation aircraft are more fuel-efficient, CAL chairman Hsieh Shih-chien said China Airlines Ltd (CAL, 華航) yesterday bid farewell to its last four Boeing 747-400 planes, ending the era of the “Queen of the Skies” at the airline. CAL has since 1975 operated a total of 29 747 series aircraft manufactured by Boeing Co. In 1990, it started receiving delivery of 19 747-400 jumbo jets, with the last one, the B-18215, delivered in 2005, it said. The B-18215 was the last of the passenger model produced by Boeing, making the 16-year-old aircraft the world’s youngest 747-400, CAL chairman Hsieh Shih-chien (謝世謙) told an event to bid farewell to the planes at Taiwan Taoyuan
Several hundred people have already booked their tickets and begun training for a spectacular voyage: a few minutes, or perhaps days, in the weightlessness of space. The mainly wealthy first-time space travelers are preparing to take part in one of several private missions which are preparing to launch. The era of space tourism is on the horizon 60 years after Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first person in space. Two companies, Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin LLC, are building spacecraft capable of sending private clients on suborbital flights to the edge of space lasting several minutes. Glenn King is the director of
DIVERSE SUPPLY: TSMC chairman Mark Liu said the firm’s US$12 billion investment in Arizona would succeed with continued bipartisan support from the US Congress Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, on Monday took part in a virtual White House summit about a global semiconductor shortage and Washington’s plans to strengthen US supply chains. The Hsinchu-based company was among 19 firms, including fellow chipmakers Samsung Electronics Co, GlobalFoundries Inc and Intel Corp, that attended the summit hosted by US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, US National Economic Council Director Brian Deese and US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo. US President Joe Biden told executives in the meeting that there is bipartisan support in the US Congress for efforts to strengthen the US
RSS