TAIPEI: Sales of leading Taiwanese tech companies, a barometer of global electronic demand, rose slightly year-over-year in May. But revenue growth is still decelerating from previous months, as consumers rein in spending on premium handsets in anticipation of the iPhone 8 range expected to launch in September.
In May, overall sales of the 19 tech companies monitored by Nikkei Asian Review rose 1.97% from a year ago to 779.8 billion New Taiwan dollars ($25.8 billion), with 11 of them generating more revenue than a year ago. The performance was in line with the trade-reliant island’s exports that continued to slow last month to only 8% year-over-year, the lowest growth since February.
Industry executives said the slowdown could be mostly attributed to consumers waiting for the new iPhone launch.
Chinese smartphone makers are also reluctant to roll out any new products as they wanted to see the innovative features in the latest Apple machines, said Tsai Chih-chun, senior director of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., world’s largest contract chipmaker, at the end of May.
“The demand for premium handsets this year so far is quite sluggish as the high-end smartphone market is squeezed by the hype of the new iPhones that are coming out in a few months,” said Steve Wang, president of Novatek Microelectronics, the world’s largest display driver chip maker on June 7.
