Taiwan’s software piracy rate fell 1 percentage point to a historical low last year because of growing awareness of intellectual property protection and the government’s crackdown on illegal PC software use, the Business Software Alliance (BSA) said in a study released yesterday.
The nation’s rate of PC software piracy declined to 40 percent last year from 41 percent in 2006, ranking No. 3 in Asia after Singapore and Japan, the BSA’s annual study said.
In other words, 40 out of 100 pieces of PC software used in local Taiwanese companies were illegal last year.
“Taiwan made some progress in improving software piracy last year because of rising intellectual property protection awareness in local corporations and the government’s ongoing crackdown,” said Sung Hong-ti (宋紅媞), co-chair of the Taiwan Committee of BSA.
However, the economic losses for the software industry caused by illegal use expanded 18 percent to US$215 million last year from US$182 million in 2006 because of the growing PC market, the study indicated.
Last year, local police seized more than NT$900 million (US$29 million) in pirated goods during numerous raids, the study said.
BSA is an international association representing global software developers. The study was commissioned by the organization and conducted independently by International Data Corp.
It would be a breakthrough, but a reachable goal, for Taiwan to reduce its piracy rate to the global average of 38 percent in the next two or three years, as most local companies are smaller in size and have limited resources to manage their software use, Sung said.
To reach this target, Sung said the government suggested stepping up piracy raids by adding more police officers to the 200-strong task force.
Of the 108 countries included in the annual PC software piracy study, the use of pirated software dropped in 67, and rose in only eight.
Because the worldwide PC market grew the fastest in high-piracy countries, the worldwide software piracy rate also increased by 3 percentage points to 38 percent last year, BSA said.
Industry losses from software piracy around the globe increased to US$47.81 billion last year, compared with US$39.7 billion in losses in 2006.
In the Asia-Pacific region, the piracy rate increased 4 percentage points to 49 percent last year from 55 percent in 2006 because of growing PC markets in emerging countries such as China and India.
The software piracy rate in China remained at 82 percent last year, while India declined 2 percentage points to 69 percent, the study said.
Six Taiwanese companies, including contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), made the 2025 Fortune Global 500 list of the world’s largest firms by revenue. In a report published by New York-based Fortune magazine on Tuesday, Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. (better known as Foxconn) ranked highest among Taiwanese firms, placing 28th with revenue of US$213.69 billion. Up 60 spots from last year, TSMC rose 60 places to reach No. 126 with US$90.16 billion in revenue, followed by Quanta Computer Inc. at 348th, Pegatron Corp. at 461st, CPC Corp., Taiwan at 494th and Wistron Corp. at 496th. According to Fortune, the world’s
NEW PRODUCTS: MediaTek plans to roll out new products this quarter, including a flagship mobile phone chip and a GB10 chip that it is codeveloping with Nvidia Corp MediaTek Inc (聯發科) yesterday projected that revenue this quarter would dip by 7 to 13 percent to between NT$130.1 billion and NT$140 billion (US$4.38 billion and US$4.71 billion), compared with NT$150.37 billion last quarter, which it attributed to subdued front-loading demand and unfavorable foreign exchange rates. The Hsinchu-based chip designer said that the forecast factored in the negative effects of an estimated 6 percent appreciation of the New Taiwan dollar against the greenback. “As some demand has been pulled into the first half of the year and resulted in a different quarterly pattern, we expect the third quarter revenue to decline sequentially,”
WEAKER ACTIVITY: The sharpest deterioration was seen in the electronics and optical components sector, with the production index falling 13.2 points to 44.5 Taiwan’s manufacturing sector last month contracted for a second consecutive month, with the purchasing managers’ index (PMI) slipping to 48, reflecting ongoing caution over trade uncertainties, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The decline reflects growing caution among companies amid uncertainty surrounding US tariffs, semiconductor duties and automotive import levies, and it is also likely linked to fading front-loading activity, CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said. “Some clients have started shifting orders to Southeast Asian countries where tariff regimes are already clear,” Lien told a news conference. Firms across the supply chain are also lowering stock levels to mitigate
DIVERSIFYING: Taiwanese investors are reassessing their preference for US dollar assets and moving toward Europe amid a global shift away from the greenback Taiwanese investors are reassessing their long-held preference for US-dollar assets, shifting their bets to Europe in the latest move by global investors away from the greenback. Taiwanese funds holding European assets have seen an influx of investments recently, pushing their combined value to NT$13.7 billion (US$461 million) as of the end of last month, the highest since 2019, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Over the first half of this year, Taiwanese investors have also poured NT$14.1 billion into Europe-focused funds based overseas, bringing total assets up to NT$134.8 billion, according to data from the Securities Investment Trust and Consulting Association (SITCA),
RSS