“Taiwan’s export orders fell by far less than expected in September as the launch of Apple Inc’s latest iPhones boosted demand for the island’s signature technology goods,” Liang-Sa Loh and Roger Tung report for Reuters. “It was the sixth consecutive monthly fall, but the better than expected showing – export orders fell 4.5 percent compared with a Reuters poll forecast for a 12.7 percent drop – could signal the start of a turnaround for a struggling tech sector.”
“Taiwan’s export orders are seen as a leading indicator of demand for Asia’s exports and for hi-tech gadgets as they typically lead actual exports by two to three months,” Loh and Tung report. “Taiwan’s economics ministry said the new Apple smartphones were behind the better than expected figures and that October orders would likely be up from September’s value. It also said that the improvement in demand was also evident as companies’ inventories were falling.
At $41.35 billion, September orders topped the $35 billion recorded in August to reach a nine-month high. The ‘Apple effect,’ which helped Taiwan notch record export orders last year, won’t be doing the same for 2015 as it has come too late in the year,” Loh and Tung report. “‘There is a chance for orders to return to growth by the end of this year,’ said Aidan Wang, an analyst with Yuanta Consulting, in Taipei. Many Taiwanese tech companies supply components that make up Apple gadgets, including contract electronics maker Hon Hai Precision Industry Co, casing maker Catcher Technology Co and camera lens maker Largan Precision Co.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Behold the power of Apple’s revolutionary iPhone.
Apple should pull the plug on the iPhone… What Apple risks here is its reputation as a hot company that can do no wrong. If it’s smart it will call the iPhone a ‘reference design’ and pass it to some suckers to build with someone else’s marketing budget. Then it can wash its hands of any marketplace failures… Otherwise I’d advise people to cover their eyes. You are not going to like what you’ll see. – John C. Dvorak, Bloated Gas Bag, March 28, 2007
Is that old f**ker Dvorak still around, or did they finally put him in a facility for the mentally impaired?
Supplying components for iPhones is such a big business that it can significantly move the needle for an entire country’s economy.
I wonder what Samsung is thinking now that their sales of Android handsets are tanking and Taiwan is producing so many of the Apple components that had previously been made in Korea? The word ‘karma’ certainly comes to mind.