Retail spending is moving from brick-and-mortar outlets to the Internet, and the future of electronic commerce looks bright in Taiwan, according to the semi-official Market Intelligence Center (MIC,
Domestic online spending is expected to amount to as much as NT$59.61 billion (US$1.87 billion) this year, up 53.2 percent from a year ago, the research house said in a report released yesterday.
"Eighty-three out of every 100 Internet users buy goods and services online," David Chou (
In a study conducted between March 30 and April 20, more than 60 percent of Internet users expressed an interest in online auction activities. Based on this, the MIC predicted that the market size of Internet auctions may reach around NT$31.79 billion this year, a jump of 65.3 percent from NT$19 billion last year.
The study indicated that female users are more active overall than males when it comes to shopping online, and that the popularity of online auctions has modified consumers' e-commerce behavior.
The survey also showed that instant messaging has become the most popular online tool, the MIC said.
According to the survey, 76.3 percent of Internet users used instant messaging this year, exceeding for the first time the popularity of search engines (72.2 percent) and e-mail (74.8 percent).
The growing popularity of instant messaging has boosted its commercial value, as has been the case with blogs or online forums, Chou said.
Last year, the usage of search engines was at No. 1, while instant messaging was at No. 3, the MIC report showed.
According to the research, the travel-related segment had the largest online market share last year, accounting for 62 percent of online spending.
According to MIC analyst Hazel Chen (
But not all online stores turned a profit. The average exit rate last year was 36 percent. The highest exit rate, 44.8 percent, was in the beauty-care segment, while the travel sector had the lowest exit rate at 14 percent.
"This is because the travel-related companies are relatively big, the scale of market growth is high and products are concentrated, so the competitiveness is relatively stable," Chen said.
Shares of contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) came under pressure yesterday after a report that Apple Inc is looking to shift some orders from the Taiwanese company to Intel Corp. TSMC shares fell NT$55, or 2.4 percent, to close at NT$2,235 on the local main board, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed. Despite the losses, TSMC is expected to continue to benefit from sound fundamentals, as it maintains a lead over its peers in high-end process development, analysts said. “The selling was a knee-jerk reaction to an Intel-Apple report over the weekend,” Mega International Investment Services Corp (兆豐國際投顧) analyst Alex Huang
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is expected to remain Apple Inc’s primary chip manufacturing partner despite reports that Apple could shift some orders to Intel Corp, industry experts said yesterday. The comments came after The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that Apple and Intel had reached a preliminary agreement following more than a year of negotiations for Intel to manufacture some chips for Apple devices. Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (台灣經濟研究院) economist Arisa Liu (劉佩真) said TSMC’s advanced packaging technologies, including integrated fan-out and chip-on-wafer-on-substrate, remain critical to the performance of Apple’s A-series and M-series chips. She said Intel and Samsung
TRANSITION: With the closure, the company would reorganize its Taiwanese unit to a sales and service-focused model, Bridgestone said Bridgestone Corp yesterday announced it would cease manufacturing operations at its tire plant in Hsinchu County’s Hukou Township (湖口), affecting more than 500 workers. Bridgestone Taiwan Co (台灣普利司通) said in a statement that the decision was based on the Tokyo-based tire maker’s adjustments to its global operational strategy and long-term market development considerations. The Taiwanese unit would be reorganized as part of the closure, effective yesterday, and all related production activities would be concluded, the statement said. Under the plan, Bridgestone would continue to deepen its presence in the Taiwanese market, while transitioning to a sales and service-focused business model, it added. The Hsinchu
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has approved a capital budget of US$31.28 billion for production expansion to meet long-term development needs during the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. The company’s board meeting yesterday approved the capital appropriation plan for purposes such as the installation of advanced technology capacity and fab construction, the world’s largest contract chipmaker said in a statement. At an earnings conference last month, TSMC forecast that its capital expenditure for this year would be at the higher end of the US$52 billion to US$56 billion range it forecast in January in response to robust demand for 5G, AI and
RSS