Export orders last month rose 1.9 percent annually to US$48.42 billion following two consecutive months of declines, thanks to strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) chips and related services, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday.
“Orders for AI-related products from chips, chip packaging to other items showed strong momentum in January,” Department of Statistics Director Huang Yu-ling (黃于玲) said. “Besides, local companies received numerous rush orders as their customers built up inventory ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday.”
Last month’s orders surpassed the ministry’s estimate of an annual contraction of up to 20 percent to US$38 billion, but it said orders this month could drop between 11 percent and 15.7 percent to between US$35.5 billion and US$37.5 billion, given seasonal factors and fewer working days, as well as a higher comparison base in February last year.
Photo: CNA
With signs of gradual stabilization in export orders over the past few months, orders might swing back to positive growth again next month depending on the growth momentum of AI and high-performance computing (HPC) devices, including AI servers, Huang said.
The ministry expects export orders to improve every quarter this year as the IMF forecast global trade volume could rise 3.3 percent, accelerating from a 0.3 percent increase last year, she said.
Last month, orders for electronic products expanded 16.1 percent to US$17.45 billion, on strong demand for HPC and AI-related chip designing services, foundry services and printed circuit boards, while orders for optoelectronic products increased 24 percent to US$1.58 billion due to higher TV panel prices and increased camera lens orders, the ministry said.
However, orders for information, communications and technology products fell 19.3 percent to US$13.91 billion, as lower demand for laptops, smartphones and networking devices offset gains in orders for servers, it said.
Improved demand ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday also boosted machinery orders by 9.5 percent to US$1.6 billion last month, helped plastics orders surge 25.5 percent to US$1.66 billion and sent base metals (including steel) soaring 26.2 percent to US$2.27 billion, while petrochemical products rose 6.8 percent to US$1.51 billion, it said.
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
Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) is expected to miss the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump on Monday, bucking a trend among high-profile US technology leaders. Huang is visiting East Asia this week, as he typically does around the time of the Lunar New Year, a person familiar with the situation said. He has never previously attended a US presidential inauguration, said the person, who asked not to be identified, because the plans have not been announced. That makes Nvidia an exception among the most valuable technology companies, most of which are sending cofounders or CEOs to the event. That includes
TARIFF TRADE-OFF: Machinery exports to China dropped after Beijing ended its tariff reductions in June, while potential new tariffs fueled ‘front-loaded’ orders to the US The nation’s machinery exports to the US amounted to US$7.19 billion last year, surpassing the US$6.86 billion to China to become the largest export destination for the local machinery industry, the Taiwan Association of Machinery Industry (TAMI, 台灣機械公會) said in a report on Jan. 10. It came as some manufacturers brought forward or “front-loaded” US-bound shipments as required by customers ahead of potential tariffs imposed by the new US administration, the association said. During his campaign, US president-elect Donald Trump threatened tariffs of as high as 60 percent on Chinese goods and 10 percent to 20 percent on imports from other countries.
INDUSTRY LEADER: TSMC aims to continue outperforming the industry’s growth and makes 2025 another strong growth year, chairman and CEO C.C. Wei says 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