Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 4.3 percent and 14.3 percent respectively from a year earlier, while sales in the wholesale sector fell for a 10th straight month and declined 5 percent annually, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said on Saturday.
The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales would retain growth momentum this month due to the opening of new shopping malls and the Mid-Autumn Festival.
However, the wholesale sector is predicted to see sales drop for another month on an annual basis, as end-market demand remains weak and inventory adjustments persist, it said.
Photo: CNA
HOLIDAY WINDFALL
Last month, the retail sector’s sales were NT$373.6 billion (US$11.63 billion), driven mainly by higher sales in department stores, supermarkets, convenience stores and hypermarkets as people spent more during the summer vacation and prepared offerings for the Chung Yuan Festival, which is part of Ghost Month.
In the first eight months of the year, retail sales totaled NT$2.981 trillion, up 7.9 percent from a year earlier, ministry data showed.
The ministry said it expects retail sales to grow between 3.1 and 6.1 percent annually to between NT$364.3 billion and NT$374.9 billion this month.
Sales in the food and beverage sector reached NT$89.8 billion last month, as catering service providers posted a 56.9 percent annual increase in sales due to robust demand for in-flight meals, while restaurant sales rose 15.1 percent year-on-year because of the holiday effect and summer vacation, the report said.
UNDER PRESSURE
In the first eight months of the year, food and beverage sales rose 23.5 percent year-on-year to NT$683.6 billion, while sales this month are projected to grow 13.5 to 16.5 percent to between NT$81.9 billion and NT$84 billion, it said.
However, the wholesale sector remained under pressure last month, with sales dropping to NT$986.1 billion as lackluster demand for machinery equipment, building materials and chemicals offset solid sales of automobiles, motorcycles, food and tobacco products, the report said.
Cumulative sales in the sector in the first eight months fell 10.5 percent to NT$7.58 trillion, it said.
Intel Corp chief executive officer Lip-Bu Tan (陳立武) is expected to meet with Taiwanese suppliers next month in conjunction with the opening of the Computex Taipei trade show, supply chain sources said on Monday. The visit, the first for Tan to Taiwan since assuming his new post last month, would be aimed at enhancing Intel’s ties with suppliers in Taiwan as he attempts to help turn around the struggling US chipmaker, the sources said. Tan is to hold a banquet to celebrate Intel’s 40-year presence in Taiwan before Computex opens on May 20 and invite dozens of Taiwanese suppliers to exchange views
Application-specific integrated circuit designer Faraday Technology Corp (智原) yesterday said that although revenue this quarter would decline 30 percent from last quarter, it retained its full-year forecast of revenue growth of 100 percent. The company attributed the quarterly drop to a slowdown in customers’ production of chips using Faraday’s advanced packaging technology. The company is still confident about its revenue growth this year, given its strong “design-win” — or the projects it won to help customers design their chips, Faraday president Steve Wang (王國雍) told an online earnings conference. “The design-win this year is better than we expected. We believe we will win
Power supply and electronic components maker Delta Electronics Inc (台達電) yesterday said it plans to ship its new 1 megawatt charging systems for electric trucks and buses in the first half of next year at the earliest. The new charging piles, which deliver up to 1 megawatt of charging power, are designed for heavy-duty electric vehicles, and support a maximum current of 1,500 amperes and output of 1,250 volts, Delta said in a news release. “If everything goes smoothly, we could begin shipping those new charging systems as early as in the first half of next year,” a company official said. The new
SK Hynix Inc warned of increased volatility in the second half of this year despite resilient demand for artificial intelligence (AI) memory chips from big tech providers, reflecting the uncertainty surrounding US tariffs. The company reported a better-than-projected 158 percent jump in March-quarter operating income, propelled in part by stockpiling ahead of US President Donald Trump’s tariffs. SK Hynix stuck with a forecast for a doubling in demand for the high-bandwidth memory (HBM) essential to Nvidia Corp’s AI accelerators, which in turn drive giant data centers built by the likes of Microsoft Corp and Amazon.com Inc. That SK Hynix is maintaining its
RSS