Thirty local firms made this year’s Global Innovation 1000 study — one fewer than last year — as global firms assign more importance to research and development (R&D) to stay competitive and profitable, accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (PwC) said in a report on Tuesday.
R&D spending totaled NT$444.3 billion (US$14.45 billion) in Taiwan, a 0.2 percent increase from last year, which accounted for 3.3 percent of their combined revenue, PwC Taiwan said.
The growth lags far behind an 11.4 percent increase for the world’s top 1,000 companies, which spent a record US$782 billion on R&D this year, PwC Taiwan executive vice president Paul Liu (劉鏡清) said.
Revenues for the 1,000 firms also grew 11.4 percent annually, even though the newest figures left R&D intensity, or innovation spending as a percentage of revenue, unchanged at 4.5 percent from last year, the annual survey said.
However, the 88 high-leverage innovators saw their sales advancing 2.6 times as fast as the pool, while their market value soared 2.9 times higher, it said.
Local firms Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), Pegatron Corp (和碩), Pou Chen Corp (寶成工業) and Siliconware Precision Industries Co (矽品精密) were recognized as high-leverage innovators, the survey said.
With regard to R&D spending, Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) leads the pack in Taiwan, followed by TSMC, MediaTek Inc (聯發科), Delta Electronics Inc (台達電) and Asustek Computer Inc (華碩), it said.
R&D spending by the top 20 companies reached US$214.5 billion, accounting for 27.4 percent of the total, the survey said.
For the second year in a row, Amazon.com Inc led the top-20 list with R&D expenditure of US$22.6 billion, up a massive 40.6 percent from last year, it found. Alphabet Inc was second, spending US$16.2 billion.
Facebook Inc posted the biggest climb on the top-20 list, up six places from its position last year to No. 14, it said.
All surveyed regions increased their R&D expenditure, with China staging the biggest increase of 34 percent, followed by Europe’s 14 percent gain and North America’s 7.8 percent increase, the survey said.
R&D spending rose in the computing and electronics, healthcare, auto, and software and Internet — the four industries that dominate the top 20 list, it said.
The survey observed a US$13 billion R&D surge in spending in computing and electronics, from flat spending over the previous five years, almost a third of which was attributable to increased spending at Samsung Electronics Co and Apple Inc.
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
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
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) investment project in Arizona has progressed better than expected, but it still faces challenges such as water and labor shortages, National Development Council (NDC) Minister Yeh Chun-hsien (葉俊顯) said yesterday. Speaking with reporters after visiting TSMC’s Arizona hub and attending the SelectUSA Investment Summit in Maryland last week, Yeh said TSMC’s Arizona site turned a profit of NT$16.14 billion (US$514 million) last year in its first full year of mass production. “TSMC told me it was surprised by the smooth trial run of the first fab, which has left the company optimistic about the project’s outlook,”
RSS