Apple’s Taiwan suppliers resume double-digit decline in August

Apple Inc.’s major suppliers in Taiwan suffered another double-digit sales decline in August as weak consumer demand dragged down the wider electronics industry.

Total revenue among the island’s major assemblers and manufacturers fell 12.3% from a year ago to NT$951.41 billion ($29.6 billion), according to data compiled by Bloomberg. It deepened the slump from July’s 9% drop, leading to a 7.5% fall for the year so far, mirroring a prolonged decline in sales of smartphones, laptops and other personal electronics that’s lasted since last year.

The surge in demand for artificial intelligence hardware has boosted the fortunes of companies like Quanta Computer Inc., which assembles data center servers and saw its shares rocket to all-time highs this summer. As a major partner of Nvidia Corp., Quanta is seen as a beneficiary of the US chipmaker’s runaway sales of AI accelerators, though those growing orders may take a while to translate into sales — Quanta’s cloud unit expects to double AI server sales next year.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., the world’s biggest contract chipmaker, is the exclusive supplier of Nvidia’s AI chips and Apple’s bespoke Silicon processors for iPhones, iPads and Mac computers. Its performance is usually monitored as a gauge for demand, though the company’s said it faces a bottleneck in providing Nvidia chips, which require its most advanced packaging technique. 

Early indications around the debut of Apple’s latest iPhone generation suggest the device is as popular as ever, which may help revive sales for the Cupertino, California-based firm toward the end of the year.