The pace of growth in Taiwan’s auto sales might slow down this quarter due to a global shortage of chips used in the automative industry, despite robust sales performance last month, Capital Investment Management Corp (群益投顧) said.
The nation’s new car sales increased 12.47 percent month-on-month and 29.84 percent year-on-year to 51,179 units last month, auto information provider UCar.com said in a report on Monday last week, citing Directorate-General of Highways (DGH) data.
Capital Investment attributed the annual growth to seasonal factors, higher sales of Toyota Corolla Cross sports utility vehicles (SUVs) and consumers rushing to buy vehicles amid concerns of an auto shortage.
Photo: CNA
Thanks to sales of 6,195 Corolla Cross SUVs, Hotai Motor Co (和泰汽車), which distributes Toyota Motor Corp vehicles in Taiwan, sold 16,661 vehicles last month, up 34.2 percent from the previous year, giving it a 32.6 percent share of the market, UCar said.
Yulon Nissan Motor Co Ltd (裕隆日產) and Ford Lio Ho Motor Co (福特六和) made significant progress last month, with sales growing by double-digit percentage points from the previous year, while sales of imported vehicles increased 5 percent year-on-year to 20,846 units, maintaining a stable growth trend.
“However, due to the shortage of automotive chips and cars in the market, it is expected that Taiwan’s auto market will see growth taper off by the end of this quarter,” Capital Investment analyst David Lai (賴季宏) said in a note on Tuesday.
Total sales in the nation’s auto market last year rose 4 percent year-on-year to 457,435 vehicles, the highest in 15 years, DGH data showed.
Lai said the domestic auto market might face two issues in the first half of this year which would undermine auto sales before a recovery in the second half of this year due to strong demand.
“First, due to lower production by various automakers and higher demand of the international market, Taiwan’s quota of imported cars is indirectly capped,” he said.
“Second, the global shortage of automotive chips, which might not be eased until the second quarter of 2021, is expected to affect the production of Taiwan-made vehicles,” he added.
The Executive Yuan has proposed a new tax break to encourage consumers to replace old vehicles with new ones, subject to Legislative Yuan approval.
A previous reduction of NT$50,000 in commodity tax, which took effect in 2016, expired last month.
Lai said the new program would be similar to the previous program in terms of stimulating the market.
However, as some people had already purchased new vehicles last year, Taiwan’s auto market might weaken this year, he said, forecasting total vehicle sales to drop 2.63 percent from last year to about 445,000 units.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
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
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
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