Visa Infinite and Visa Platinum cardholders have become a major consumer group as purchases on those cards overseas last year grew 6 percent year-on-year to account for 66 percent of Visa cards' total usage, a report released yesterday by Visa International said.
The number of the two high-end cards surpassed 6.85 million as of the end of September, representing 28 percent of Visa's cards in circulation.
The average transaction on Infinite and Platinum Visa cards abroad was approximately NT$6,200 last year, compared with NT$5,700 for Visa credit cards, the report said.
"The market of classic and gold cards is shrinking and now we're targeting Platinum and Infinite cardholders as the major contributors," said Visa country manager in Taiwan Marco Ma (
Although the banking sector last year was dented by consumer bad loans, Taiwanese traveling abroad were big spenders, swiping close to NT$52 billion (US$1.6 billion) on their Visa credit cards. The total was similar to the previous year.
The figures showed the growing interest in overseas travel, which stimulated Visa to add card perquisites for buying airline tickets, eating out, staying in hotels and visiting golf courses in countries especially popular with tourists, Ma said.
The report said that most Taiwanese tourists chose destinations within Asia-Pacific, with credit card consumption within the region accounting for 60 percent of the total amount charged to cards last year.
Taiwanese Visa holders spent the most in the US at 22 percent of overall consumption.
Next came China at 16 percent, Hong Kong at 13 percent, Japan at 10 percent and the UK at 7 percent.
Card holders charged the largest average sums in Italy and France, swiping on average NT$13,600 and NT$10,730, respectively, mostly on luxury goods.
Average transaction amounts were also high in Macau, with an average of NT$10,780, mostly on sports and entertainment, the report said.
In terms of retail channels, popular locations included department stores (NT$3.6 billion), jewelry shops (NT$2.1 billion) and clothing stores (NT$1.6 billion).
INTERGRATION: Jensen Huang said that every Nvidia department and function of the company should be using AI, after reportedly saying staff were ‘insane’ not to Nvidia Corp is in a “unique” position in the market, despite facing intensifying competition, chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said during a brief visit to Taiwan yesterday amid a potentially growing challenge from Google for the artificial intelligence (AI) chip market. Huang told reporters that the AI market is “extremely large” and that while there is a lot of competition, Nvidia’s “condition is very strong and our position is very unique.” Huang, who arrived in Taipei on Thursday, was responding to questions about the possible threat posed by Google. According to a report in The Information on Tuesday, Meta has been in
Charming US President Donald Trump one week, angering China the next, Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has had a busy start and is riding high in the polls, all on a few hours of sleep a night. However, the honeymoon might end soon for the Margaret Thatcher-admiring leader if a spat with China escalates further and she fails to keep inflation in check. “I believe Prime Minister Takaichi will surely do what she needs to do, so I trust her,” Kozue Otsuka, 50, told reporters at a festival this week for business owners seeking good fortune. While buying a lucky kumade rake featuring
INSULATED: The company said it is less exposed to global complications, as it has built a strong footprint worldwide, and has multiple sources of rare earths and raw minerals Merck Group yesterday said it would ramp up production next year at its new flagship facility in Kaohsiung’s Lujhu District (路竹) to satisfy growing demand for advanced semiconductor materials and specialty gases, and to address supply resilience issues amid mounting geopolitical risks. Merck made the remarks during a news conference before the inauguration of its 500 million euros (US$582.1 million) facility, which is also to supply other markets in the Asia-Pacific region, it said. Merck executive board deputy chair and electronics CEO Kai Beckmann told reporters the company adopted a “local-for-local” strategy about seven years ago to address the cycle time of
TECH TITANS: Amazon’s latest chip joins Google in competing for the 90 percent market share held by Nvidia, which claims it is ‘a generation ahead of the industry’ Amazon Web Services (AWS) on Tuesday launched its in-house-built Trainium3 artificial intelligence (AI) chip, marking a significant push to compete with Nvidia Corp in the lucrative market for AI computing power. The move intensifies competition in the AI chip market, where Nvidia dominates with an estimated 80 to 90 percent market share for products used in training large language models that power the likes of ChatGPT. Google last week caused tremors in the industry when it was reported that Facebook-parent Meta Platforms Inc would employ Google AI chips in data centers, signaling new competition for Nvidia. This followed the release last month of
RSS