“Taiwan has long been home to many of Apple’s key suppliers,” Eva Dou reports for The Wall Street Journal. “But is the iPhone maker’s business really big enough to move the needle on Taiwan’s economic data?”
“It appears the answer is yes, with economists recently raising their forecasts of Taiwan’s GDP on upbeat sales prospects for Apple’s upcoming new iPhones,” Dou reports. “Credit Suisse revised up its full-year estimate last month to 3.4% from 3.2% partly on iPhone expectations. Taiwan’s Ta Chong Bank did similarly, raising its second quarter GDP forecast to 3.75% from 3% after confirming more Taiwanese companies in the upcoming iPhones’ supply chain.”
“Taiwanese suppliers collectively get around $100 to $150 from Apple for each iPhone or iPad, Randy Abrams, an analyst at Credit Suisse estimates,” Dou reports. “With Apple estimated to sell 179.3 million iPhones this year, according to Credit Suisse, this would translate to $17.9 billion to $26.9 billion in revenue for Taiwan’s firms. While Abrams cautions these are rough estimates, it suggests the scale Apple’s impact on Taiwan’s economy. Taiwan’s 2013 gross national product was $499.8 trillion [sic billion], so this would translate to Apple making up around 3.6% to 5.4% of the country’s GNP, a measure that includes offshore production by Foxconn and other suppliers.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Behold the power of Apple’s iPhone.
Right on, MDN! Love the late night posts! Keep up the great work—love your site, and have for 8 years and counting.
Makes you wonder why Android is still popular in Taiwan?
Curious what is the most popular phone in Taiwan? Might be visiting this country soon
Most of Apple-related Taiwanese companies like Foxconn mostly work in mainland China, so GDP growth will be mostly there, not locally.
Apple isn’t small potatoes. As Apple moves away from Samsung as a supplier, S. Korea’s economy will suffer and the economies of countries used as bases for its new suppliers will prosper. Right now Taiwan is enjoying the benefits of Samsung losing Apple’s SoC business. We’ll see who else benefits from the SSD, RAM and display business moving elsewhere.
Pretty amazing when one company can move the dial for a country’s GDP.