Facebook Inc’s penetration rate in Taiwan is higher than in any other market in the world, an executive of the world’s largest social network said yesterday.
Facebook director for North Asia Jayne Leung (梁幼莓) told a press briefing that the number of active Facebook users in Taiwan reached 15 million per month in the fourth quarter of last year, representing about 65 percent penetration among the country’s population and edging out Hong Kong’s 61 percent for the top spot.
Taiwan had a Facebook penetration rate of about 60 percent in the second quarter of last year, when it was ranked top in Asia, according to Facebook data.
The number of daily users in Taiwan also reached 11 million during the fourth quarter, up 10 percent from the second quarter, while active daily mobile users increased by 20 percent to 8.5 million, Leung said.
Facebook did not give Taiwan user statistics for the third quarter.
“Taiwan is a very healthy market for us and we have seen huge growth here in the mobile segment,” Leung said.
Facebook plans to hire more sales and marketing staff in its North Asia offices this year to serve advertisers in key vertical industries, such as e-commerce, fast-moving consumer goods, telecommunications, tourism and finance, she said.
The social network will also add a new advertisement reseller in Taiwan to seek more business opportunities from mobile ads, Leung said.
In the fourth quarter of last year, Facebook’s mobile ad revenue accounted for 53 percent of its overall revenue, reaching US$1.25 billion, higher than the company’s total revenue in the same period of 2012.
Its mobile-only monthly active users amounted to 296 million during the October-to-December period of last year, nearly doubling the 157 million in the year-earlier period, according to Facebook data.
The Investment Commission yesterday approved a Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) application to invest an additional US$3.5 billion in its Arizona subsidiary to manufactured advanced chips. The world’s largest contract chipmaker’s board of directors last month approved the funding project after TSMC started moving manufacturing equipment into the fab in December last year in preparation for the production of 4-nanometer chips next year. TSMC said it has also commenced the second phase of facility construction in Arizona. The second fab is to produce semiconductors using 3-nanometer technology in 2026. Altogether, TSMC plans to spend US$40 billion on the Arizona fabs, doubling its
KEY SECTOR: Taiwan’s new chip legislation is insufficient, and a more strategic ‘chip act’ that covers the whole semiconductor ecosystem is needed, MediaTek’s chairman said MediaTek Inc (聯發科) chairman Rick Tsai (蔡明介) yesterday urged the government to formulate a state semiconductor strategy and comprehensive “chip act” that includes local chip designers and smaller-scale semiconductor companies, as they are facing intensifying competition from China. The government is playing an increasingly important role in safeguarding the local semiconductor industry’s competitiveness, given that the US, the EU and Japan are offering hefty subsidies and significant tax incentives to build semiconductor capacity domestically, as they have realized the strategic importance of semiconductors, Tsai said. To implement such a program, the government should take steps to finance a “chip act,” Tsai said
Microsoft Corp has threatened to cut off access to its Internet search data, which it licenses to rival search engines, if they do not stop using it as the basis for their own artificial intelligence (AI) chat products, people familiar with the dispute have said. The software maker licenses the data in its Bing search index — a map of the Internet that can be quickly scanned in real time — to other companies that offer Web search, such as Apollo Global Management Inc’s Yahoo and DuckDuckGo. Last month, Microsoft integrated a cousin of ChatGPT, OpenAI’s AI-powered chat technology, into Bing. Rivals
MOUNTING PRESSURE: Although bank failures in the US and Europe would not cause systemic risks, it would dampen consumers’ willingness to spend, GlobalWafers said GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), the world’s third-largest silicon wafer supplier, yesterday said that the financial turmoil in the US and Europe has dimmed the outlook for chip demand in the second half of this year, as growing economic uncertainty could dampen consumer spending. The Hsinchu-based wafer manufacturer said it is seeing greater pressure from economic uncertainty on the industry’s recovery, as customers would have not expected Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank and a tier-one bank like Credit Suisse Group SA to collapse suddenly. Although the failures are unlikely to cause systemic risks, consumers would be cautious of spending on non-essential items, such
RSS