Export orders last month surged 31 percent year-on-year to US$49.45 billion, driven by strong demand for servers and chips used in artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing applications, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday.
New smartphone launches, China’s subsidies program targeting consumer electronics and information technology products, and front-loading orders to avoid US tariffs also helped lift last month’s export orders, the ministry said.
Last month’s figure surpassed the ministry’s estimate of US$43.5 billion to US$45.5 billion.
Photo: CNA
The growth momentum is expected to extend into this month with export orders forecast to expand between 10.3 percent and 14.5 percent to between US$52 billion and US$54 billion, Department of Statistics Director Huang Yu-ling (黃于玲) said by telephone.
That would bring aggregate export orders this quarter to between US$148.4 billion and US$150.4 billion, an annual increase of between 11.3 percent and 12.8 percent, Huang said.
“We are looking at a fourth straight quarter of growth in the first quarter,” Huang said. “AI demand remains strong and healthy.”
The ministry expects Chinese start-up DeepSeek’s (深度求索) low-cost AI models to have a positive impact on Taiwanese companies in the long term on expectations that their affordability would accelerate the uptake of AI applications.
However, non-technology sectors still face pricing competition from overseas rivals due to overcapacity and their prospects remain bleak, Huang said.
In the first two months of the year, export orders for electronic products soared 21.8 percent year-on-year to US$37.35 billion, and those of information and communications technology products increased 6.1 percent to US$25.83 billion, which the ministry attributed to the rising demand for chips, servers and networking products amid the AI boom.
Orders for optoelectronic products rose 7.7 percent to US$3.22 billion during the two-month period, thanks to improved selling prices of large TV panels and higher demand for optical inspection tools, the ministry said.
Machinery and mechanical equipment orders rose 3.5 percent to US$3.03 billion in the first two months, as strong demand for semiconductor equipment offset weak sales of automation systems and machine tools, it said.
Faced with intensifying price competition from overseas rivals, Taiwanese suppliers of base metal, plastic and rubber, and chemical products saw their orders decline 10.7 percent, 8.3 percent and 6.9 percent to US$3.64 billion, US$2.74 billion and US$2.65 billion respectively in the first two months, the ministry said.
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