Mobile payments in Taiwan last year more than doubled to NT$240.7 billion (US$8.54 billion) from NT$118.2 billion a year earlier as a trend toward ditching wallets and paying with mobile devices continued, Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) data showed yesterday.
Growth of mobile payments has at least doubled each year since 2016, when it totaled NT$1.49 billion, rising to NT$14.8 billion in 2017 and NT$47.8 billion in 2018, the data showed.
The commission defines mobile payments as those conducted on a personal mobile device via electronic payment platforms such as Line Pay and Jkos Pay, as well as credit card, debit card or stored value card spending through mobile wallets, such as Apple Pay.
Photo courtesy of MOS Burger
Payments made last year through e-payment platforms surged 135 percent from NT$36.2 billion a year earlier to NT$85.4 billion.
The method ranked top among all mobile payment tools, which could be attributed to e-payment services offering more incentives than other providers, the commission said.
It was the first time that e-payment services outperformed platform-based credit card or debit card spending, the data showed.
“We have noticed that most mobile payments are for retail spending in the real world, instead of online shopping,” Banking Bureau Deputy Director-General Lin Chih-chi (林志吉) said by telephone.
People still prefer credit cards to shop online, but when they buy snacks, beverages or consumer goods at physical stores, they prefer using e-payment services to avoid using a wallet and earn reward points, Lin said.
Teenagers, who are not allowed credit cards, but can use mobile e-payment services by linking a bank account to an e-payment platform, helped boost mobile payments, the FSC said.
Platform-based debit card spending was the second-most popular method last year, accounting for NT$72.5 billion and up 158 percent year-on-year, while platform-based credit card spending was third, up 54 percent annually to NT$68.9 billion, the data showed.
Payments via mobile point-of-sale devices totaled NT$5.1 billion, up 13 percent from a year earlier, while payments via electronic stored value cards rose 63 percent to NT$1.8 billion, the data showed.
Mobile payments remain a comparatively small percentage of non-cash payments, which totaled NT$4.95 trillion last year, but the proportion is expected to keep growing, the commission said.
Cumulative mobile payments since 2016 totaled NT$423 billion as of the end of last year, up 132 percent from a year earlier, the data showed.
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
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
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],”