Overall revenue in the retail sector last month hit another record high of NT$311.3 billion (US$10.01 billion), up 4.5 percent year-on-year, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday.
Mounting sales of general merchandise and vehicles were the main drivers, the ministry said, adding that increasing e-commerce and catalogue sales also contributed to the growth.
Department store sales were propelled 9.4 percent as newcomers entered the market, accompanying growing sales in luxury goods and catering services, it said.
Supermarkets, hypermarkets and convenience stores all witnessed increased sales, by 7 percent, 8.9 percent and 2.9 percent respectively, as retailers launched reward programs and exclusive product sales.
The summer heat might further boost sales of refreshments this month, the ministry said.
“We have observed robust demand in the domestic market,” Department of Statistics Deputy Director-General Wang Shu-chuan (王淑娟) told a news conference in Taipei. “The domestic job market has improved with higher national income per capita.”
“The government has lowered taxes this year, benefiting up to 3.19 million households,” Wang said, adding that the additional income was reflected by an increase in domestic expenditure.
The retail sector is likely to continue to grow in the coming months as it approaches peak season in October and November, she said.
The food and beverage sector posted record-high revenue of NT$68.6 billion last month, representing an annual increase of 5.1 percent, which the ministry attributed to the Dragon Boat Festival, the graduation season and the summer heat.
Compared with the strong performance in the retail and food and beverage sectors, the wholesale sector witnessed a 6 percent year-on-year decline in revenue to NT$834.4 billion.
The ministry said the decline was due to the ongoing trade dispute between the US and China, which depressed global market demand, and caused prices of steel products and petrochemical raw materials to fall.
The wholesale revenue of construction materials and chemicals posted decreases of 13 percent and 14.3 percent respectively last month, while machinery equipment declined by 3.2 percent, the ministry said.
The ministry forecast a slight increase in revenue in the wholesale sector this month, but a survey of companies showed that revenue might continue declining by between 6 and 9 percent year-on-year.
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
Apple Inc has been developing a homegrown chip to run artificial intelligence (AI) tools in data centers, although it is unclear if the semiconductor would ever be deployed, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The effort would build on Apple’s previous efforts to make in-house chips, which run in its iPhones, Macs and other devices, according to the Journal, which cited unidentified people familiar with the matter. The server project is code-named ACDC (Apple Chips in Data Center) within the company, aiming to utilize Apple’s expertise in chip design for the company’s server infrastructure, the newspaper said. While this initiative has been
GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), the world’s No. 3 silicon wafer supplier, yesterday said that revenue would rise moderately in the second half of this year, driven primarily by robust demand for advanced wafers used in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, a key component of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. “The first quarter is the lowest point of this cycle. The second half will be better than the first for the whole semiconductor industry and for GlobalWafers,” chairwoman Doris Hsu (徐秀蘭) said during an online investors’ conference. “HBM would definitely be the key growth driver in the second half,” Hsu said. “That is our big hope
The consumer price index (CPI) last month eased to 1.95 percent, below the central bank’s 2 percent target, as food and entertainment cost increases decelerated, helped by stable egg prices, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. The slowdown bucked predictions by policymakers and academics that inflationary pressures would build up following double-digit electricity rate hikes on April 1. “The latest CPI data came after the cost of eating out and rent grew moderately amid mixed international raw material prices,” DGBAS official Tsao Chih-hung (曹志弘) told a news conference in Taipei. The central bank in March raised interest rates by