About 58 percent of semiconductors imported by Japan last year came from Taiwan, an increase of 2.5 percentage points from 2021, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said on Thursday.
The value of Taiwan’s semiconductor exports to Japan reached US$15.78 billion, up 32.7 percent annually, the ministry said in a statement.
Taiwan’s position as the top supplier of semiconductors to Japan put it well ahead of its nearest competitors, with the US holding an 8.5 percent share, China 8.3 percent and South Korea 7.5 percent.
Photo: CNA
The increase in exports to Japan reflects robust demand for specialty ICs and chips used in automotive electronics, the ministry said.
Semiconductors accounted for 47 percent of Taiwan’s total exports to Japan last year, which totaled US$33.61 billion, it said.
However, the pace of growth in exports to Japan fell to 15.1 percent annually, from 24.8 percent in 2021.
The ministry attributed the muted growth to geopolitical conflicts and rising inflation worldwide.
Last year, Taiwan was also Japan’s No. 1 supplier of storage media and polyformaldehyde products.
Storage media exports from Taiwan to Japan totaled US$1.08 billion, translating into a 29.8 percent share of Japan’s imports, ahead of China’s 22.5 percent share, South Korea’s 16.7 percent and the US’ 5.9 percent.
Exports of polyformaldehyde products to Japan totaled US$940 million, accounting for 34.7 percent of the country’s imports, ahead of Thailand’s 12.5 percent share, South Korea’s 12.3 percent and China’s 11.5 percent.
Taiwan sold US$620 million of computer and related devices to Japan last year, accounting for 4.1 percent of Japan’s total imports and becoming the third-largest supplier, after China at 76.5 percent and Singapore at 4.6 percent.
Meanwhile, Taiwan imported US$54.6 billion of goods from Japan last year, down 2.7 percent from a year earlier.
IC products were the most popular import from Japan, accounting for 17.1 percent of overall imports, but saw an annual decline of 8.7 percent, falling to US$9.36 billion, due to falling demand for memory chips, the ministry said.
Semiconductor equipment imports from Japan hit US$6.7 billion, up 10.8 percent from a year earlier and making up 12.3 percent of Taiwan’s total imports from Japan, it added.
Imports of wafers used in semiconductor production from Japan totaled US$1.69 billion, an annual increase of 17.4 percent and accounting for 3.1 percent of Taiwan’s overall purchases from Japan, the ministry said.
Japan was the largest wafer supplier to Taiwan last year, with sales accounting for 45.9 percent of Taipei’s total purchases, ahead of China with 21.9 percent, Germany with 8 percent and Singapore with 6.4 percent, it said.
The Netherlands was the largest supplier of semiconductor equipment to Taiwan with a 29 percent share last year, followed by Japan with a 23.1 percent share and the US with 20.9 percent, the ministry said.
China was the largest IC supplier to Taiwan, providing 29.1 percent of Taiwan’s total purchases, ahead of South Korea with 26.3 percent and Japan with 12.7 percent, it added.
The New Taiwan dollar is on the verge of overtaking the yuan as Asia’s best carry-trade target given its lower risk of interest-rate and currency volatility. A strategy of borrowing the New Taiwan dollar to invest in higher-yielding alternatives has generated the second-highest return over the past month among Asian currencies behind the yuan, based on the Sharpe ratio that measures risk-adjusted relative returns. The New Taiwan dollar may soon replace its Chinese peer as the region’s favored carry trade tool, analysts say, citing Beijing’s efforts to support the yuan that can create wild swings in borrowing costs. In contrast,
Nvidia Corp’s demand for advanced packaging from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) remains strong though the kind of technology it needs is changing, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said yesterday, after he was asked whether the company was cutting orders. Nvidia’s most advanced artificial intelligence (AI) chip, Blackwell, consists of multiple chips glued together using a complex chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS) advanced packaging technology offered by TSMC, Nvidia’s main contract chipmaker. “As we move into Blackwell, we will use largely CoWoS-L. Of course, we’re still manufacturing Hopper, and Hopper will use CowoS-S. We will also transition the CoWoS-S capacity to CoWos-L,” Huang said
VERTICAL INTEGRATION: The US fabless company’s acquisition of the data center manufacturer would not affect market competition, the Fair Trade Commission said The Fair Trade Commission has approved Advanced Micro Devices Inc’s (AMD) bid to fully acquire ZT International Group Inc for US$4.9 billion, saying it would not hamper market competition. As AMD is a fabless company that designs central processing units (CPUs) used in consumer electronics and servers, while ZT is a data center manufacturer, the vertical integration would not affect market competition, the commission said in a statement yesterday. ZT counts hyperscalers such as Microsoft Corp, Amazon.com Inc and Google among its major clients and plays a minor role in deciding the specifications of data centers, given the strong bargaining power of
INDUSTRY LEADER: INDUSTRY LEADER: Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), a major chip supplier to Nvidia Corp and Apple Inc, yesterday said it aims to grow revenue by about 25 percent this year, driven by robust demand for artificial intelligence (AI) chips. That means TSMC would continue to outpace the foundry industry’s 10 percent annual growth this year based on the chipmaker’s estimate. The chipmaker expects revenue from AI-related chips to double this year, extending a three-fold increase last year. The growth would quicken over the next five years at a compound annual growth rate of 45 percent, fueled by strong demand for the high-performance computing
RSS