Most Taiwanese manufacturers last month expected business to flatten or weaken in the next six months, but they were less pessimistic than a month earlier, the Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (TIER, 台灣經濟研究院) said yesterday.
The mood shift follows an easing in lockdown measures by many nations to allow some economic activity while seeking to contain the COVID-19 pandemic.
The confidence gauge for the manufacturing industry last month was 81.75, down 0.8 points, its lowest level since February 2009 and the fourth consecutive month of declines, the think tank said.
Photo: Lee Ya-wen, Taipei Times
Non-tech sectors continued to take a hit from sluggish demand and a raw material price rout partly induced by governments’ attempts to curb the spread of the virus, TIER president Chang Chien-yi (張建一) said.
The virus has proved to be a mixed blessing for local tech firms, as makers of data centers, servers and laptops reported a boom in business, while companies in mobile device supply chains — mainly smartphones — saw a slowdown, Taipei-based TIER said.
The number of companies with a dim business outlook dropped 5.6 percentage points to 34.9 percent, while those with upbeat outlooks increased 6.7 percentage points to 24.8 percent, the think tank’s monthly survey showed.
The US, the eurozone, Japan and other major economies have gradually lifted shutdown orders, raising hopes that economic activity might slowly return to normal, TIER said.
Some technology analysts have voiced concern that the strong demand for laptops and tablets used for remote working and learning arrangements might result in a supply glut and soften demand during the high season in the second half of the year.
Business sentiment for service-focused sectors increased 0.4 points to 82.37, reversing three straight months of declines, TIER found.
People have lately been feeling more comfortable going out, as there have been no new domestic COVID-19 cases in Taiwan for several weeks, the institute said, adding that crowds have reappeared in popular restaurants and at tourist attractions on weekends.
Securities houses also received a boost from stock rallies last month, it said.
Restaurants, hotels and retailers are looking to benefit from stimulus measures to encourage domestic travel. The government has said that it plans to distribute vouchers in July to shore up domestic demand.
Tourism-related companies are generally conservative about their overall earnings ability, as they have to cut capacity to accommodate social distancing requirements and must make do without foreign travelers, the institute said.
The confidence reading for the real-estate and civil engineering sectors dropped 1.43 points to 84.36, the survey found.
The government is speeding up public works projects, but potential property buyers are holding off on purchases to see how the pandemic pans out, TIER said.
Record-low interest rates and ample liquidity would lend support to the nation’s property market, it added.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the