TAIPEI: Sales at Taiwan’s major tech companies decelerated sharply in March, pressured by a slowdown in Chinese smartphone makers and an unfavorable foreign exchange rate for the export-reliant electronics sector.
Total revenue of the 19 tech companies monitored by Nikkei Asian Review went up 2.67% from a year ago to 885.5 billion New Taiwan dollars ($28.97 billion) in March, slowing substantially from the more than 12% growth year-over-year in February. In March, 11 out of 19 major tech companies reported a sales increase from a year ago, compared with 18 in February. Overall, Taiwan’s exports also slowed, rising just 13.2% year-on-year in March, from 27.7% in February.
“The major factor that led to a growth deceleration in March is the strong Taiwanese dollar and the substantial slowdown in orders from Chinese device-makers,” said Jeff Pu, an analyst at Yuanta Investment Consulting.
Pu said weakening demand for the iPhone 7 range also hurt sales at Apple suppliers. Revenues at major Apple suppliers on NAR’s watch list together increased less than 1% in March from a year ago.
Key iPhone assembler Hon Hai Precision Industry, also known as Foxconn Technology Group, saw sales rise 0.61% year-on-year to NT$341.69 billion in March while the revenue of its smaller rival Pegatron dropped 16.87% from a year ago to NT$74.29 billion.
Sales of Catcher Technology, a major metal casing provider to Apple, declined nearly 23% last month. Pegatron and Catcher both mainly supply for the smaller 4.7-inch iPhone 7 model that reported lukewarm demand and saw their quarterly revenue dwindle from a year ago.
In March, sales of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., the world’s largest contract chipmaker and key supplier for iPhone core processors, advanced 17.5% to NT$85.87 billion from a year ago. For the first quarter, the chipmaker generated NT$ 233.91 billion in sales, up 14.9% year-over-year.
