Business sentiment in Taiwan’s export-oriented manufacturing sector improved for the third consecutive month last month, buoyed by growing demand for artificial intelligence (AI) applications and stronger consumer electronics orders, the Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (TIER) said on Thursday.
TIER data showed that the composite index for the manufacturing sector rose 2.52 points from a month earlier to 91.65.
By contrast, the index for the services sector fell 2.88 points to 85.23, while the construction sector index edged up 0.80 points to 97.35, they showed.
Photo: Chiang Ying-ying, AP
The institute attributed the uptick in manufacturing sentiment to a sharp increase in exports of electronic components and information and communications (ICT) devices, which surged 33.8 percent year-on-year last month, prompting more manufacturers to be more upbeat about their operations
However, lingering concerns over US-China trade negotiations and the slow progress of bilateral trade talks between Washington and Taipei continued to weigh on manufacturers’ outlook, the institute said.
As for the decline in the services sector index, the institute said the local stock market’s strong performance — highlighted by a 6.55 percent rise in the benchmark TAIEX — helped boost sentiment among financial firms.
However, the traditional “Ghost Month” period dampened consumer demand for durable goods such as cars, furniture and home appliances, offsetting those gains, it said.
In Taiwan, many people avoid buying durable goods during Ghost Month, which fell between Aug. 23 and Sept. 21 this year, due to longstanding superstitions, it added.
With the end of summer vacation, retail and food-and-beverage sales weakened, further weighing on last month’s composite index, the institute said.
The local housing market also showed signs of consolidation, with property transactions down 3.5 percent from August, it said.
TIER forecast that total home sales for the year would decline by more than 20 percent year-on-year, citing the central bank’s selective credit controls and tighter bank lending.
Uncertainty about the domestic economy due to the Trump administration’s tariff policies is expected to keep many potential home buyers on the sidelines, it added.
HORMUZ ISSUE: The US president said he expected crude prices to drop at the end of the war, which he called a ‘minor excursion’ that could continue ‘for a little while’ The United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Kuwait started reducing oil production, as the near-closure of the crucial Strait of Hormuz ripples through energy markets and affects global supply. Abu Dhabi National Oil Co (ADNOC) is “managing offshore production levels to address storage requirements,” the company said in a statement, without giving details. Kuwait Petroleum Corp said it was lowering production at its oil fields and refineries after “Iranian threats against safe passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz.” The war in the Middle East has all but closed Hormuz, the narrow waterway linking the Persian Gulf to the open seas,
Apple Inc increased iPhone production in India by about 53 percent last year and now makes a quarter of its marquee devices there, reflecting the US company’s efforts to avoid tariffs on China. The company assembled about 55 million iPhones in India last year, up from 36 million a year earlier, people familiar with the matter said, asking not to be named because the numbers aren’t public. Apple makes about 220 million to 230 million iPhones a year globally, with India’s share of the total increasing rapidly. Apple has accelerated its expansion in the world’s most populous country in recent years, bolstered
HEADWINDS: The company said it expects its computer business, as well as consumer electronics and communications segments to see revenue declines due to seasonality Pegatron Corp (和碩) yesterday said it aims to grow its artificial intelligence (AI) server revenue more than 10-fold this year from last year, driven by orders from neocloud solutions clients and large cloud service providers. The electronics manufacturing service provider said AI server revenue growth would be driven primarily by the Nvidia Corp GB300 server platform. Server shipments are expected to increase each quarter this year, with the second half likely to outperform the first half, it said. The AI server market is expected to broaden this year as more inference applications emerge, which would drive demand for system-on-chip, application-specific integrated circuits
PROJECTION: TSMC said it expects strong growth this year, with revenue in US dollars projected to grow by about 30 percent, outperforming the industry Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday reported consolidated sales last month reached NT$317.66 billion (US$9.98 billion), the highest ever for the month of February, driven by robust demand for chips built using the company’s advanced 3-nanometer (3nm) process. Last month’s figure was up 22.2 percent from a year earlier, but fell 20.8 percent from January, the world’s largest contract chipmaker said in a statement. For the first two months of the year, TSMC posted cumulative sales of NT$718.91 billion, up 29.9 percent from a year earlier. Analysts attributed the growth to sustained global demand for artificial intelligence (AI) products
RSS