By Angelica Oung
Staff reporter
Revenue in the computer and information technology (IT) services sector rose 11 percent year-on-year to NT$105.7 billion (US$3.8 billion) in the second quarter of this year, the highest second-quarter figure on record, on the back of work-from-home demand, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said on Tuesday.
Photo: Lai Hsiao-tung, Taipei Times
The increase was mostly driven by strong sales in the computer programming industry, which jumped 9.7 percent annually to a record NT$78.9 billion, as remote work arrangements required firms to deploy network storage servers and boosted demand for information security and network architecture products, the ministry said in a report.
Department of Statistics Deputy Director-General Huang Wei-jie (黃偉傑) said that work-from-home needs extended beyond demand from employees upgrading office equipment.
“Businesses seeking to accommodate work-from-home needs had to widely upgrade their corporate IT equipment such as servers and data protection,” Huang said. “Software and hardware demands for network architecture grew, leading to growth in the computer programming industry.”
The IT services industry’s sales rose 14.7 percent to NT$26.8 billion, also a record increase, as Web design and management fees increased, and digital advertisement sales soared, the report said.
In the first half of the year, the computer and IT services sector posted record combined revenue of NT$209.2 billion, up 12.4 percent year-on-year, the ministry said.
The computer programming industry’s revenue rose 11.3 percent from a year earlier to NT$157.1 billion, while the IT services industry increased by 15.8 percent to NT$52.1 billion, it said.
However, the technical support and professional services sector’s revenue declined 1.1 percent from a year earlier to NT$74.1 billion, the ministry said.
The sector’s performance was affected by sales declines of 11.9 in the photography industry, and 7.2 percent in the advertising and market research industry, which posted revenues of NT$1.7 billion and NT$34.4 billion respectively.
Within the sector, revenue in the professional design industry rose 6.2 percent to NT$17.2 billion, as demand for interior, exhibition and industrial design expanded, while revenue in the management and consulting industry increased 5.4 percent to NT$20.8 billion, also a record, attributable to growing business for consulting across domains such as corporate finance, human resources management and energy consumption, the ministry said.
Overall, the technical support and professional services sector reported first-half revenue edging up 0.4 percent to NT$144.6 billion, the ministry added.
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
Apple Inc has been developing a homegrown chip to run artificial intelligence (AI) tools in data centers, although it is unclear if the semiconductor would ever be deployed, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The effort would build on Apple’s previous efforts to make in-house chips, which run in its iPhones, Macs and other devices, according to the Journal, which cited unidentified people familiar with the matter. The server project is code-named ACDC (Apple Chips in Data Center) within the company, aiming to utilize Apple’s expertise in chip design for the company’s server infrastructure, the newspaper said. While this initiative has been
GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), the world’s No. 3 silicon wafer supplier, yesterday said that revenue would rise moderately in the second half of this year, driven primarily by robust demand for advanced wafers used in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, a key component of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. “The first quarter is the lowest point of this cycle. The second half will be better than the first for the whole semiconductor industry and for GlobalWafers,” chairwoman Doris Hsu (徐秀蘭) said during an online investors’ conference. “HBM would definitely be the key growth driver in the second half,” Hsu said. “That is our big hope
The consumer price index (CPI) last month eased to 1.95 percent, below the central bank’s 2 percent target, as food and entertainment cost increases decelerated, helped by stable egg prices, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. The slowdown bucked predictions by policymakers and academics that inflationary pressures would build up following double-digit electricity rate hikes on April 1. “The latest CPI data came after the cost of eating out and rent grew moderately amid mixed international raw material prices,” DGBAS official Tsao Chih-hung (曹志弘) told a news conference in Taipei. The central bank in March raised interest rates by