Taiwan’s official manufacturing purchasing managers’ index (PMI) last month rose to a 15-month high of 54.9, driven by demand for electronics and biomedicine products, as market uncertainty subsided, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday.
About half of the manufacturing sectors reported a pickup in business, especially firms involved in the deployment of 5G products and services, the Taipei-based think tank said.
“Business improvement was most evident for firms in the global 5G supply chain,” CIER president Chen Shi-kuan (陳思寬) told a media briefing, adding that the absence of economic deterioration in the US and Europe also helped.
PMI aims to gauge the health of the manufacturing industry, with scores of more than 50 indicating expansion and those below the threshold suggesting a contraction.
The sub-index on new business orders climbed to 61 from 52.7 a month earlier, with 5G deployment being the growth driver, CIER researcher Chen Shin-hui (陳馨蕙) said.
Not only chipmakers and chip designers, but also firms supplying related chemical materials and high-performing chip-testing services and equipment reported a pickup in business, Chen Shin-hui said.
Other firms said that some orders that had been canceled were now re-established, she added.
Makers of textiles and food products fared better, with the score for new business orders rising to 70.7 from 65.6 in October, the institute’s survey found.
Seasonal and rush orders helped boost the sub-index on industrial production to 60.4 from 55.4 a month earlier, while the gauge on employment levels rose to 55.6 from 50.6, the survey found.
Order visibility for 5G demand could extend into the first quarter of next year, Chen Shin-hui said.
Still, companies producing raw materials, transportation tools, electrical and machinery equipment were not out of the woods and reduced purchasing activity, the survey said.
The sub-index on raw material prices dropped to 44.1, after scoring 46.4 one month earlier, it found.
Despite two straight months of positive PMI data, firms remain conservative with the sub-index on business prospects in the next six months coming in at 49, compared with 45.7 in October.
The slow season for component suppliers of technology products is around the corner, except for companies that are helping clients roll out 5G devices early next year.
The operating conditions for non-manufacturing sectors gained further momentum, as the non-manufacturing index (NMI) grew to 55 from 53.9, with all sectors reporting business expansion, CIER said.
It is the ninth straight month that the NMI has increased.
Service-oriented firms, such as app developers and telecoms operators, are also aiming to take advantage of 5G-related businesses, Chen Shin-hui said.
Taiwanese firms have increased investment in the Philippines in recent years as Manila’s ties with Washington deepen and global supply chains continue to shift away from China, an expert at the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The Philippines had not been among Taiwanese investors’ top choices in Southeast Asia, CIER Taiwan ASEAN Studies Center director Kristy Hsu (徐遵慈) said at a seminar in Taipei. However, Taiwan’s investment in the country has grown significantly since the COVID-19 pandemic, reaching US $257 million last year, a high in recent years, she said. Although Taiwan’s total investment in the Philippines still lags
Intel Corp regards Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) as a longstanding partner, as the US chipmaker would continue outsourcing production of advanced chips to TSMC, Intel chief executive officer Lip-Bu Tan (陳立武) said yesterday. “I don’t look at people as competitors. I look at the collaboration... Nvidia is also, you know, a good friend,” Tan told a news conference following his keynote speech at the Computex trade show in Taipei. “It’s a very trusted partnership for us... We are a big, top customer for them, and we’re going to continue doing that,” he said, referring to TSMC, the world’s largest foundry
Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday said it would work with US chipmaker Intel Corp to jointly develop and deploy next-generation artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure and intelligent computing platforms in a move to capture booming demand for AI computing systems. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康), said in a statement that the partnership would combine its global manufacturing scale, system integration expertise and AI data center deployment capabilities with Intel’s strengths in processor architecture, silicon technologies and software ecosystem. The companies said they plan to work on equipment used in AI data centers, including server racks powered by
Artificial intelligence (AI) agents would supplant smartphones as the center of people’s digital lives, fundamentally reshaping personal devices and driving a major computing upgrade cycle, Qualcomm Inc CEO Cristiano Amon said yesterday. In his keynote speech for this year’s Computex trade show in Taipei, Amon said that the rise of "agentic AI" — AI systems capable of reasoning, planning and carrying out tasks autonomously — would transform how people interact with technology across phones, PCs, vehicles and wearable devices. Describing the technology as the next major evolution in computing, Amon said that "2026 is the year of agents.” For decades, smartphones have sat
RSS