Export orders increased 6.1 percent annually to US$154.04 billion last quarter, the highest in seven quarters, as strong demand for cloud-based applications, servers and artificial intelligence (AI) chips drove last month’s orders to the highest level in about two years, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday.
Export orders last month increased 4.6 percent to US$53.79 billion, the largest since October 2022, the ministry said.
The ministry attributed the strong performance to orders for electronic products, mainly semiconductors, which surged 10.5 percent year-on-year to US$19.01 billion on the back of strong demand for AI and high-performance computing devices.
Photo: CNA
Orders for information and communications technology products rose 7 percent to US$17.6 billion amid robust demand for servers and cloud-based devices, it said.
Orders for optronic products increased 3.3 percent to US$1.88 billion last month on rising demand for optical inspection tools used in semiconductor manufacturing, it said, but added that demand for backlight modules used in TV panels declined, casting a dismal outlook for optronic products this month.
“September’s figure only hit the lower end of the ministry’s estimates because of an uneven recovery in end demand,” Department of Statistics Director Huang Yu-ling (黃于玲) said.
Despite strong orders for electronic products, semiconductors in particular, “declines in global crude oil prices dampened orders for plastic and chemical products last month,” Huang said.
Orders for plastic and rubber products contracted 1.1 percent annually to US$1.53 billion last month amid oversupply, while orders for chemical products sank 8.5 percent to US$1.37 billion after the cost of crude oil plummeted 22.2 percent, the ministry’s data showed.
However, orders for base metals climbed 4.3 percent to US$2 billion and those of machinery products and mechanical equipment expanded 3.6 percent to US$1.61 billion, the data showed.
During the first nine months of the year, export orders expanded 3.7 percent year-on-year to US$428.9 billion, the ministry said.
The ministry expects export orders this month either to drop 0.5 percent to US$53.5 billion or grow up to 3.2 percent to US$55.5 billion, Huang said.
The forecast represents an annual growth of between 1.3 percent and 5 percent compared with US$52.8 billion in October last year, she said.
The ministry is cautiously optimistic about this quarter, which should be better than last quarter due to seasonal factors, she said.
If that is the case, export orders this year would return to growth after orders last year contracted 15.9 percent to US$561 billion, as high inflation dampened consumer demand for electronics and the semiconductor industry entered an inventory correction cycle, she said.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) would not produce its most advanced technologies in the US next year, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said yesterday. Kuo made the comment during an appearance at the legislature, hours after the chipmaker announced that it would invest an additional US$100 billion to expand its manufacturing operations in the US. Asked by Taiwan People’s Party Legislator-at-large Chang Chi-kai (張啟楷) if TSMC would allow its most advanced technologies, the yet-to-be-released 2-nanometer and 1.6-nanometer processes, to go to the US in the near term, Kuo denied it. TSMC recently opened its first US factory, which produces 4-nanometer
GREAT SUCCESS: Republican Senator Todd Young expressed surprise at Trump’s comments and said he expects the administration to keep the program running US lawmakers who helped secure billions of dollars in subsidies for domestic semiconductor manufacturing rejected US President Donald Trump’s call to revoke the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act, signaling that any repeal effort in the US Congress would fall short. US Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who negotiated the law, on Wednesday said that Trump’s demand would fail, while a top Republican proponent, US Senator Todd Young, expressed surprise at the president’s comments and said he expects the administration to keep the program running. The CHIPS Act is “essential for America leading the world in tech, leading the world in AI [artificial
REACTIONS: While most analysts were positive about TSMC’s investment, one said the US expansion could disrupt the company’s supply-demand balance Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) new US$100 billion investment in the US would exert a positive effect on the chipmaker’s revenue in the medium term on the back of booming artificial intelligence (AI) chip demand from US chip designers, an International Data Corp (IDC) analyst said yesterday. “This is good for TSMC in terms of business expansion, as its major clients for advanced chips are US chip designers,” IDC senior semiconductor research manager Galen Zeng (曾冠瑋) said by telephone yesterday. “Besides, those US companies all consider supply chain resilience a business imperative,” Zeng said. That meant local supply would
BIG INVESTMENT: Hon Hai is building the world’s largest assembly plant for servers based on Nvidia Corp’s state-of-the-art AI chips, Jalisco Governor Pablo Lemus said The construction of Hon Hai Precision Industry Co’s (鴻海精密) massive artificial intelligence (AI) server plant near Guadalajara, Mexico, would be completed in a year despite the threat of new tariffs from US President Donald Trump, Jalisco Governor Pablo Lemus said. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), is investing about US$900 million in what would become the world’s largest assembly plant for servers based on Nvidia Corp’s state-of-the-art GB200 AI chips, Lemus said. The project consists of two phases: the expansion of an existing Hon Hai facility in the municipality of El Salto, and the construction of a
RSS