A global shortage of semiconductor chips, which has affected the automotive industry and is threatening to spill over to other sectors, bodes well for Taiwan’s exports and GDP growth this year, Australia and New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ) said yesterday.
“We believe the robust demand for chips will add tailwinds to the economy’s export orders and
production outlook over the first half of this year, at least,” ANZ said, projecting GDP growth this year of 3.8 percent.
Photo: Sam Yeh, AFP
Taiwanese firms in the semiconductor industry accounted for 75.7 percent of global IC foundry revenue, 56.7 percent of package and testing revenue, and 19.3 percent of design revenue last year, the Taiwan Semiconductor Industry Association said.
The chip shortage has deepened amid production disruptions at automakers.
Research body IHS Markit expects the shortage to persist in the first half of this year, affecting about 3 percent of global production, or 628,000 vehicles, this quarter alone.
Automakers use chips for safety and performance features, such as electronic stability programs and electronic control units.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), United Microelectronics Corp (聯電), Vanguard International Semiconductor Corp (世界先進) and Powerchip Technology Corp (力積電) have agreed to prioritize production and suggested the possibility of price hikes.
TSMC is seeking to cut the lead-time for production of automotive chips by 50 percent to 20 to 25 days, ANZ said, citing industry analysts.
The ripple effect of the chip shortage is threatening to disrupt the smartphone industry, with Samsung Electronics Co saying that a shortage of semiconductors for memory chips used in smartphones might slow its production schedule.
Taiwan’s chipmakers ramping up production amid an upturn in the tech cycle, 5G rollouts and the trend toward electric vehicles bodes well for Taiwan’s electronics industry and its economy as a whole, ANZ said.
The traditional sectors are also picking up, helping exports to contribute 1.4 percentage points to GDP growth, the bank said.
“We believe the strong momentum will extend into the first half of this year, with likelihood of upside risks,” ANZ said.
ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控) yesterday launched its second testing facility in San Jose, California, to expand advanced chip testing capacity such as burn-in testing to satisfy customers’ rising engineering needs for emerging semiconductor applications, such as artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing (HPC). ISE Labs Inc, a fully owned subsidiary of ASE, would operate the advanced testing facility. When added to its first facility in nearby Fremont, ISE would double its available research-and-development lab and business space to 150,000m2 in hopes of boosting the US semiconductor supply chain, the company said in a statement. “As the semiconductor manufacturing supply chain reshoring
VALUE: TSMC’s market capitalization far exceeds the combined size of all the Latin American companies on MSCI Inc’s benchmark for emerging markets Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) US$420 billion equity rally this year would get a valuation test this week when it reports earnings, with analysts expecting the chipmaker to raise full-year sales forecasts. The world’s biggest contract chipmaker would probably report a 29 percent increase in second-quarter net income on Thursday, according to the median estimate of analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. More importantly, analysts from JPMorgan Chase & Co to Morgan Stanley expect it to also raise its full-year sales guidance, justifying another round of valuation expansion. Just like Nvidia Corp, TSMC has become a favorite artificial intelligence (AI)-bet for investors with
The entry of chip giant Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) into the elite club of the world’s most valuable companies is further proof that the generative artificial intelligence (AI) revolution is shaking up Wall Street. TSMC, which is listed in Taipei and New York, on Monday briefly broke the US$1-trillion market capitalization barrier, putting it ahead of Tesla Inc as the seventh-most valuable technology giant on the stock market. Also on Monday, Alphabet Inc, Apple Inc and Meta Platforms Inc hit all-time highs. The top 10 of the world’s most valuable companies is headed by Microsoft Corp and Apple, closely followed by
ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT: The previous shooting targeting a US president or major party candidate was the 1981 incident targeting then-US president Ronald Reagan Saturday’s shooting at former US president Donald Trump’s election rally raises his odds of winning back the White House, and trades betting on his victory would increase this coming week, investors said yesterday. Trump was shot in the ear during the rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday in what the authorities were treating as an assassination attempt. Trump, his face spattered with blood, pumped his fist moments after the attack, and his campaign said he was fine after the incident. Before the shooting, markets had reacted to the prospect of a Trump presidency by pushing the US dollar higher and positioning for a