Taiwan's production of computer hardware up by 16.4 per cent

Aug 23, 2006, 14:53 GMT

Taipei - The Taiwanese information industry's hardware production shot up 16.4 per cent to 73 billion dollars last year, Taiwan's Market Information Centre (MIC) said on Wednesday.

The increase was due to increased shipments of notebook computers, liquid crystal display (LCD) monitors, and digital cameras

Last year Taiwan produced 49 million units of notebook computers to the value of 30.3 billion dollars, up 38.8 per cent from 2004 and accounting for 41.5 per cent of Taiwan's hardware production, MIC said.

The centre attributed the increased shipment of notebook computers to their improved qualities - which has made them nearly as good as desktop computers - and the expansion of Wi-Fi (wireless internet access) environment.

In terms of output, Taiwan performed extremely well in the fields of LCD monitor and digital camera production.

Last year Taiwan was the world's top manufacturer of LCD monitors with 73.24 million units, up 60.3 from the previous year, and was the world's second-largest digital camera maker after Japan with 32.1 million units, up 40.8 per cent from the previous year.

However, Taiwan is worried about the outflow of its production bases as 93 per cent of the hardware was manufactured in overseas plants last year, up 8.8 per cent from 2004.

In recent years, many Taiwan companies have moved production abroad to take advantage of foreign countries' cheap labour and land, and to be closer to consumer markets.

Taiwan is a world leader in information technology, but most of the products are made on an original equipment manufacturing basis.

That means that they are made in Taiwan bearing international companies' brand names like Apple, Dell, IBM or Microsoft.