The combined revenue of companies listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange and the Taipei Exchange for the whole of last year totaled NT$44.66 trillion (US$1.35 trillion), up 12.8 percent year-on-year and hit a record high, data compiled by investment consulting firm CMoney showed on Saturday.
The result came after listed firms reported a 23.92 percent annual increase in combined revenue for last month at NT$4.1 trillion, the second-highest for the month of December on record, and posted a 15.63 percent rise in combined revenue for the December quarter at NT$12.25 billion, the highest quarterly figure ever, the data showed.
Analysts attributed the strong performance in the final quarter of last year to a rebound in the economic climate and strong shipments of artificial intelligence (AI) devices.
Photo: Carlos Garcia Rawlins, Reuters
The New Taiwan dollar’s depreciation against the US dollar and a surge of orders placed with Taiwanese firms ahead of potential tariff hikes by the new US administration were also factors behind firms’ revenue growth, they said.
For this quarter, revenue momentum would remain firm, bucking the effect of a traditionally slow season, thanks to shipments of AI servers based on Nvidia Corp’s GB200 chips, analysts at Fubon Securities Investment Services Co (富邦投顧) and SinoPac Securities Investment Service Corp (永豐投顧) said.
The shipping and transportation, electronic components and electronics distribution, and finance industries reported the highest revenue increases of 34.87 percent, 31.42 percent and 27.96 percent respectively last year compared with the previous year, mainly due to the lower comparison base in 2023, CMoney data showed.
Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), the world’s largest contract electronics manufacturer and a major supplier to Apple Inc, generated NT$6.86 trillion in revenue last year to stay at the top of the sales rankings among listed firms in Taiwan.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電) ranked the second-highest with revenue of NT$2.89 trillion, followed by contract electronics manufacturers Quanta Computer Inc (廣達) with NT$1.41 trillion, Pegatron Corp (和碩) with NT$1.13 trillion and Wistron Corp (緯創) with NT$1.05 trillion, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed.
Amid an AI boom, the five companies had a combined revenue of NT$13.34 trillion, accounting for nearly 30 percent of the total revenue of all listed firms.
In sixth through 10th place were semiconductor components distributor WT Microelectronics Co (文曄) at NT$959.43 billion, contract electronics manufacturer Compal Electronics Inc (仁寶) at NT$910.27 billion, semiconductor components distributor WPG Holdings Co (大聯大) at NT$880.61 billion, oil refiner Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) at NT$663.82 billion and food conglomerate Uni-President Enterprises Corp (統一企業) at NT$657.63 billion, the data showed.
On the contrary, the oil, gas and electricity, glass and ceramics, and steel industries underperformed due to unfavorable market conditions, as their accumulated revenue dropped 6.53 percent, 4.27 percent and 2.22 percent from a year earlier respectively, according to CMoney data.
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