Video game, fitness and pet businesses have proven resilient amid the COVID-19 pandemic, as people spend more time at home, while a low global fertility rate and rapidly growing population of senior citizens are expected to lend further support to those businesses, First Securities Investment Trust Co (FSITC, 第一金投信) said yesterday.
Video game participants are expected to reach 2.7 billion this year, accounting for one-third of the global population, allowing the industry to expand rapidly and groom professionals and celebrities, FSITC chief investment officer Jack Tang (唐祖蔭) told a news conference.
It is not surprising that celebrities with huge followings win prodigious compensation for endorsing games and peripheral products, Tang said.
In the US, the video gaming industry’s revenue last year reached US$160 billion, much larger than the music and film industries combined, and is expected to surpass US$200 billion in 2023, FSITC fund manager Kelvin Chen (陳杰) said.
Fitness is another theme that presents great business potential, as obesity has become a major health threat in advanced economies, FSITC fund manager Tommy Chang (常李奕翰) said.
With about 1.6 billion people facing the risk of developing cardiac, diabetic and other health problems, diet, nutrition and weight management would grow into a US$2.2 trillion business in 2025, Chang said, citing the Global Wellness Institute.
As pets increasingly replace children to keep senior citizens company in light of declining fertility, the number of pets could exceed 500 million worldwide this year and approach 670 million in 2024, FSITC portfolio manager Jason Hsu (許書豪) said.
That would suggest a global pet market of US$500 billion to US$1 trillion a year, he said.
FSITC is to issue fitness, gaming and pet funds next month to take advantage of the trends.
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
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day