Sales generated by the nation’s wholesale sector increased 4.8 percent on an annual basis last month to NT$883.2 billion (US$29.41 billion), ending four consecutive months of annual declines, the Ministry of Economic Affairs’ statistics department said on Wednesday.
The sector has mainly the machinery equipment industry to thank for its recovery, as it posted a 6.5 percent year-on-year increase in sales last month to NT$330.4 billion, contributing around 37.41 percent of the sector’s overall revenue.
“Companies have reported strong orders of mobile phones and other network communication devices for last month,” Department of Statistics Deputy Director-General Wang Shu-chuan (王淑娟) told a press conference on Wednesday in Taipei, adding that domestic investments from the semiconductor sector have also been partly responsible for the industry’s growth.
As the Lunar New Year falls on an earlier date this year, the food, beverage and tobacco industry, the pharmaceutical and cosmetics industry, and the household appliances industry all witnessed rosy sales last month, increasing 7.7 percent, 10.6 percent and 8.9 percent year-on-year respectively, the ministry’s data showed.
“We also saw a strong performance from the automotive industry last month, which posted an 8.7 percent year-on-year increase in sales,” Wang said, citing growing sales of commercial vehicles as well as the popularity of newly launched car models as the main reasons.
The construction materials industry, the wholesale sector’s second-largest contributor, continued to suffer from weak market demand as it posted a 1.7 percent year-on-year decline in sales last month to NT$104.9 billion, but the figure was its best for last year, Wang said.
Overall revenue totaled NT$10.25 trillion for the wholesale sector last year, decreasing 2.1 percent from NT$10.47 trillion in 2018, the ministry’s data indicated.
Meanwhile, the nation’s retail sector reported a 2.7 percent year-on-year increase in sales last month to NT$350.3 billion.
Healthy sales of general merchandise and vehicles remain the biggest driver behind the sector’s growth as they amounted to NT$109.1 billion and NT$64.7 billion each, increasing by 0.7 percent and 12.2 percent year-on-year last month.
The relatively small increase in sales of general merchandise, however, has chiefly department stores to blame, as they posted a 2.4 percent decline in sales last month due to a timing gap in the launching of annual promotional sales between last year and the year before.
Online sales including e-commerce and catalog sales remained robust, increasing 9 percent annually to NT$28.3 billion last month, as a result of the “Double 12” shopping event, Christmas holiday purchases and end-of-year banquets.
However, sales of network communications devices and home appliances continued to decline by 6.7 percent year-on-year to NT$18.5 billion as companies closed down several brick-and-mortar stores.
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