The computer software piracy rate in Taiwan fell for the fourth year in a row last year, placing it third among countries in Asia with the lowest piracy rates, a study said yesterday.
Software piracy in Taiwan dropped to 38 percent last year, a decrease of 1 percentage point from a year earlier, the Business Software Alliance (BSA) — an international association representing the global software industry — said in a statement.
Topping the list of Asian countries with the lowest violation rate was Japan with 21 percent, followed by Singapore with 35 percent, said the seventh annual study conducted by market researcher IDC for the BSA.
The study tracked 111 economies across the globe.
Despite the drop, the 38 percent of unlicensed software translates to a loss of US$227 million for Taiwan’s industry as a whole. The loss is a record high in five years, the statement read.
“BSA will continue to engage with government, businesses and consumers to make public the risks of using unlicensed software, and the true impact that software piracy has on Taiwan’s economy,” BSA Taiwan co-chair Tony Chi (季建廷) said in the statement.
On a global scale, the piracy rate rose to 43 percent last year from 41 percent in 2008, causing a total loss of US$51.4 billion.
BSA cited exponential growth in PC software deployments in emerging economies, such as Brazil, China and India, as the factor behind the rise in piracy.
IDC estimates that for every dollar of legitimate software sold in a country, another US$3 to US$4 in revenues would be generated for the domestic industry.
The US, Japan, and Luxembourg continued to hold the lowest piracy rates of all countries and regions surveyed, with the US rating 20 percent, followed by Japan and Luxembourg with 21 percent each.
Meanwhile, countries with the highest piracy rates included Georgia, Zimbabwe and Moldova, where piracy rates reached more than 90 percent.
MULTIFACETED: A task force has analyzed possible scenarios and created responses to assist domestic industries in dealing with US tariffs, the economics minister said The Executive Yuan is tomorrow to announce countermeasures to US President Donald Trump’s planned reciprocal tariffs, although the details of the plan would not be made public until Monday next week, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said yesterday. The Cabinet established an economic and trade task force in November last year to deal with US trade and tariff related issues, Kuo told reporters outside the legislature in Taipei. The task force has been analyzing and evaluating all kinds of scenarios to identify suitable responses and determine how best to assist domestic industries in managing the effects of Trump’s tariffs, he
TIGHT-LIPPED: UMC said it had no merger plans at the moment, after Nikkei Asia reported that the firm and GlobalFoundries were considering restarting merger talks United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電), the world’s No. 4 contract chipmaker, yesterday launched a new US$5 billion 12-inch chip factory in Singapore as part of its latest effort to diversify its manufacturing footprint amid growing geopolitical risks. The new factory, adjacent to UMC’s existing Singapore fab in the Pasir Res Wafer Fab Park, is scheduled to enter volume production next year, utilizing mature 22-nanometer and 28-nanometer process technologies, UMC said in a statement. The company plans to invest US$5 billion during the first phase of the new fab, which would have an installed capacity of 30,000 12-inch wafers per month, it said. The
Taiwan’s official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) last month rose 0.2 percentage points to 54.2, in a second consecutive month of expansion, thanks to front-loading demand intended to avoid potential US tariff hikes, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. While short-term demand appeared robust, uncertainties rose due to US President Donald Trump’s unpredictable trade policy, CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) told a news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s economy this year would be characterized by high-level fluctuations and the volatility would be wilder than most expect, Lien said Demand for electronics, particularly semiconductors, continues to benefit from US technology giants’ effort
‘SWASTICAR’: Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s close association with Donald Trump has prompted opponents to brand him a ‘Nazi’ and resulted in a dramatic drop in sales Demonstrators descended on Tesla Inc dealerships across the US, and in Europe and Canada on Saturday to protest company chief Elon Musk, who has amassed extraordinary power as a top adviser to US President Donald Trump. Waving signs with messages such as “Musk is stealing our money” and “Reclaim our country,” the protests largely took place peacefully following fiery episodes of vandalism on Tesla vehicles, dealerships and other facilities in recent weeks that US officials have denounced as terrorism. Hundreds rallied on Saturday outside the Tesla dealership in Manhattan. Some blasted Musk, the world’s richest man, while others demanded the shuttering of his
RSS